
GEOUOE WASHINGTON. 



Barnes' Popular History 

of the United States 

of America 



By 



JOEL DOP.MAN STEELE, Ph. D.. F.G.S. 

and 

ESTHER BAKER STEELE, Lit. D. 




From Prehistoric America 
to the Present Time 



REVISED TO DATE 



COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 
Profusely Illustrated 



A. L. BURT COMPANY 

Publishers New York 






Copyright 1875, 1878, 1895, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1912 and 1914, 
By A. S. BARNES & CO. 



OCT 23 1914 

©CLA388031 

■ 



PREFACE. 

Four centuries ago, it was not known that the earth is round, 
much less that so vast an ocean awaited a Columbus and a new con- 
tinent a Cabot. North America was then a wilderness, and its in- 
habitants were savages. The story of its marvelous development 
is now to open before us. It will be ours to tell it, not in a dull, 
dry-as-dust style, but with somewhat of the earnestness of the men 
who cut down the primeval forest, and the fire of the soldiers who 
first subdued the heathen possessor and at last drove out the British 
invader. We shall find every hard fact to be brightened with the 
romance of real life, than which nothing is more stirring, and every 
era of our history to be full of patriotic devotion and heroic en- 
deavor. Looking back from our standpoint of the years, we shall 
see plain men of many nationalities working on, all unconsciously 
laying the foundation of a new empire ; yet, under the guidance of 
a Hand reached down from above, building wiser than they knew, 
and establishing a home for liberty — civil and religious — its first in 
the wide world. 

America was discovered just at the close of the fifteenth century. 
The sixteenth was spent in numerous explorations and attempts by 
the Spanish, the English, and the French to settle and get possession 
of this splendid prize of a continent. The seventeenth century was 
one of colonization. It witnessed the establishment of all the thir- 
teen colonies except Georgia. Religious and political refugees flocked 
to this fair land of promise. The advance guard of civilization 
planted its standard from the "River of May" on the south to the 
"Great River of Canada" on the north. The Cavalier found a home 
on the Potomac, the Puritan on Cape Cod, the Huguenot on the 
Cooper, and the Quaker on the Delaware. With a strange misap- 
prehension of the extent of the territory bestowed, and a curious 
jealousy of rival nations, all the English grants extended westward 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the French southward from the 
St. Lawrence to the Gulf, and the Spanish northward from the Gulf 
to the Arctic Ocean. Nearly three'-quarters of the eighteenth cen- 
tury was occupied in crystallizing the scattered settlements into colo- 



VI. 

nies regularly organized and governed, and in the struggles of the 
English to get control of the continent. 

This preparatory work was the ante-natal growth of the republic 
which was born July 4, 1776. It is therefore treated in Chapters I 
to IV as a necessary prelude to the Hundred Years of American 
Independence. 

Chapters V to XI, embracing the Revolutionary War, begin the 
book proper. Here will be found a narrative of those years of wait- 
ing and sacrifice during which the nation achieved its independence. 

Chapters XII to XVI cover the Constitutional History of the 
country, embracing the formation of the Constitution and the grad- 
ual development of the nation down to i860. It has two great epi- 
sodes : the war of 1812-1814, which secured for the young Republic 
the respect of foreign nations; and the war with Mexico, which gave 
to it New Mexico and California, and let the tides of emigration 
pour into the El Dorado of the West. 

Chapters XVII to XXI treat of the Civil War, which resulted 
in the abolition of slavery and the centralization of the governing 
power. 

Chapters XXII to XXVI narrate the important events which 
have occurred since the close of the Civil War. 

In this history there is told, in convenient form, the story of our 
country from the prehistoric America of the Mound Builders to the 
Treaty with Panama, the preparations for the long-delayed Isthmian 
Canal, and to the opening of the second year of the Wilson ad- 
ministration. 

With the completion of the Panama Canal, and through it the 
ascendancy of a master mind in the person of Colonel Goethals, 
who, by the way, at the time of this publication, is becoming a figure 
in national affairs to be reckoned with ; with the tariff and cur- 
rency bills causing widespread discussion ; with the civil war in Mex- 
ico arousing the anxiety of the nations, and with the reform meth- 
ods, boldly and frankly undertaken by President Wilson and his 
cabinet of able men, the times are indeed lively and progressive be- 
yond measure. 

It is hoped that this up-to-date edition of Barnes Popular History 
of the United States will afford a convenient, accessible and easily 
read story of our country's evolution, and in these crowded and 
strenuous days supply a means of gaining the necessary information 
in a concise and interesting form, 



CONTENTS 

Part I — Introduction 
Chapter. Page. 

I. Early History of America 9 

II. Explorations and Settlements 27 

III. Colonial Wars 67 

IV. Colonial Life 84 

Part II — The liar of the Revolution 

I. Alienation of the Colonies 131 

II. Opening of the War 146 

III. Independence Year — 1776 166 

IV. Third Year of the Revolution — 1777 196 

V. Fourth Year of the Revolution — 1778 247 

VI. Fifth Year of the Revolution — 1779 270 

VII. Sixth Year o? the Revolution — 1780 283 

VIII. The Last Year of the Revolution — 1781 306 

Part III — The Constitutional Period 

IX. The Development of the Republic 325 

X. American Nationality Assured — 1800-1820 354 

XI. Internal Dissensions — 1820-1840 408 

XII. Culmination of Domestic Difficulties — 1840-1860 436 

Part IV — The Civil War 

XIII. First Year of the Civil War — 1861 481 

XIV. Second Year of the Civil War — 1862 495 

XV. Third Year of the Civil War — 1863 531 

XVI. Fourth Year of the Civil War — 1864 560 

XVII. Last Year of the Civil War — 1865 584 

Part V — The New Era 

XVIII. The Decade of Reconstruction 603 

XIX. The Centennial Decade— 1876-1886 621 

XX. Era of Reform — 1885-1900 645 

XXI. Roosevelt and Taft— 1901-1911 693 

XXII. Under Woodrow Wilson— 1912-1914 751 










i Frontispiece. Portrait, G force Washington. page 

2 Columbus in his Study, &c, &c. — Initial 9 

3 The Serpent Mound 10 

4 The Mounds near Little Rock, Ark 11 

5 Indian Symbols 13 

6 Specimen of Indian Picture-Writing 15 

7 Indian Life 17 

8 An Indian Family Moving 18 

g Norman Ship (from the Bayeux Tapestry) 20 

10 The Ancient Tower at Newport, R. 1 20 

11 Portrait, Columbus 21 

12 Behaim's Globe ( 1492) — Eastern Hemisphere. 22 

13 " " (1492) — Western Hemisphere 23 

14 Columbus Discovering Land 24 

15 A Spanish Caravel 24 

16 Columbus Taking Possession 25 

17 Tomb of Columbus at Havana 26 

18 Balboa — Initial 27 

19 De Soto's March 28 

20 Portrait, Jacques Cartier 28 

21 Map of Early American Discoveries 29 

22 Portrait, Admiral Coligny 29 

23 Old Gateway at St. Augustine, Florida •. 30 

24 Raleigh introduces Tobacco into England 32 

25 The Deserted Colony of Roanoke 33 

26 The Ruins at Jamestown „ 34 

27 Smith Explaining his Compass to the Indians 35 

28 Pocahontas 36 

29 Selling Wives to the Planters. 38 

30 Drummond brought before Berkeley 40 

31 Portrait, Lord Baltimore 42 

32 Signing the Compact in the Cabin of the Mayflower 43 

33 Plymouth Rock 44 

34 Welcome, Englishmen. — Plymouth, 1621 ......,.,,,.,.,.... 45 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

35 Fac-simile of First Map Engraved in New England 47 

36 Roger Williams Received by Canonicus 48 

37 Portrait, King Philip 49 

38 goffe at hadley 50 

39 The Old Witch House, Salem 52 

40 The Charter Oak 54 

41 The Hai.f-Moon in the Hudson 55 

42 Portrait, Governor Stuyvesant 57 

43 The English Landing at New York, 1664 56 

44 Th^ Tomb of Peter Stuyvesant 59 

45 Seals of New Amsterdam and New York 60 

46 Statue of Penn in Philadelphia 61 

47 Huguenots going to Church 64 

48 Portrait, General Oglethorpe, aged 102 65 

49 Penn's Treaty Tree 66 

50 The Death Whoop— Initial 67 

51 Portrait, Samuel Champlain , 68 

52 Marquette Descending the Mississippi 69 

53 A Fortified House 70 

54 The Indian Attack on Schenectady 71 

55 Mrs. Dustin Disposing of her Captors 72 

56 Map of the French and Indian Wars (1689 to 1763) 73 

57 An Incident of Washington's Return 75 

58 Portrait, Benjamin Franklin 76 

59 Washington at Braddock's Defeat 77 

60 Portrait, General Wolfe. . . 80 

61 Quebec in Early Times 81 

62 The Grave of Braddock 83 

63 Clearing a Home in the Backwoods — Initial 84 

64 Pine-Tree Shilling 85 

65 The Old Stage-Coach 86 

66 Early Printing-Press 89 

67 A Scold Gagged 90 

68 The Stocks 90 

69 The First Church erected in Connecticut (1638) 91 

70 Whitefield's House, Guilford, Connecticut 95 

71 Training Day in the Olden Time 97 

72 A Wedding Journey 98 

73 Dutch Mansion and Cottage in New Amsterdam 102 

74 Dutch Courtship 106 

75 Ye Dutch Schoolmaster 108 

76 Early American Plow 114 

77 The Pillory 115 

78 The Old-Time Fireside 119 

79 Ancient Chair (brought over in the Mayflower) 125 

80 The Woolen Spinning- Wheel 126 

81 Field Sports of the South 130 

82 The Boston Tea-Party — Initial 133 

83 Portrait, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 135 

84 Patrick Henry Addressing the Virginia Assembly 136 

85 Map of the Colonies 138 

Full-page Portrait, Benjamin Franklin , 139 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

86 Faneuil Hall 140 

87 The Regulators Threatening Governor Tryon „ 142 

88 Carpenter's Hall 144 

89 England Forcing Tea down the Throat of America 145 

go The Light in the Steeple — Initial 146 

gi Paul Revere Spreading the Alarm 147 

g2 Map, Vicinity of Boston and Concord 148 

g3 Putnam Starting for Cambridge i4g 

g4 Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga 150 

g5 The Prayer before the 'Battle of Bunker Hill 152 

g6 Map of the Battle of Bunker Hill 153 

g7 The Bayonet Charge at Bunker Hill 154 

g8 The Old Magazine at Williamsburg, Va 158 

gg Specimen of Continental Money 161 

00 The Prescott Gate, Quebec 163 

01 A Street in Quebec — Scene of Arnold's Attack 165 

02 Evacuation of Boston — Initial 166 

03 Boston One Hundred Years Ago i6g 

04 The Attack on Fort Moultrie 171 

05 Liberty Bell 173 

06 Map of Battle of Long Island 178 

07 Prison-Ship at Wallabout i7g 

08 The Retreat from Long Island T.80 

og Map of the Lower Hudson 185 

10 A Hessian Grenadier 188 

11 Washington Crossing the Delaware 191 

12 Washington's Visit to General Rall ig4 

13 Portrait, Robert Morris ig5 

14 Franklin at the French Court — Initial ig6 

15 Death of General Mercer and Mercek Monument ig8 

16 Portraits, Pulaski, Kosciusko and Baron DeKalb 202 

17 Ruins of Fort Ticonderoga 205 

18 The Alarm at Fort Schuyler 2og 

ig Mrs. Schuyler Setting the Grain-Fields on Fire 212 

20 General Fraser Covered by Sharp-Shooters 217 

21 Map of the Upper Hudson 2ig 

22 Portrait, General Burgoyne 224 

23 " General Gates 225 

24 Map of Operations in New Jersey and. Pennsylvania 230 

25 The Paoli Monument 232 

26 Battle of Germantown — Attack on Chew's House 234 

27 Capture of General Prescott 237 

28 Execution of a Spy at Kingston, N. Y 240 

2g Washington's Headquarters at Valley Forge 246 

30 Washington at Prayer — Initial 247 

31 In Camp at Valley Forge 251 

32 Portrait, Marquis de Lafayette 255 

33 Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin 25g 

34 Medal Commemorating the Alliance between France and the United 

States 25g 

135 Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth 261 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

KAGE 

36 Portrait, Joseph Brandt (after Catlin) 269 

37 " Red Jacket (after Weir) 270 

38 Map of Operations in Virginia and the Carolinas 272 

39 Giving the Countersign at Stony Point 275 

40 Capture of the Serapis by the Bon Homme Richard 281 

41 The Decatur Monument 282 

42 Patriots making Arms and Ammunition — Initial 283 

43 A Rendezvous of Marion and his Men 288 

44 Nancy Hart and the British Soldiers 292 

45 The Old Sugar House, Liberty Street, New York 208 

46 Capture of Major Andre 302 

47 The Monument at Tarrytown 305 

48 General Wayne Confronting the Rioters — Initial 306 

49 Mrs. Steele and General Greene 310 

50 The Partisan Leaders of the South 314 

51 Map of the Siege of Yorktown 320 

52 Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown 321 

53 Portrait, George the Third 324 

54 Washington's Inauguration at Federal Hall — Initial 327 

55 Washington's Headquarters at Newburg 330 

56 Map, Territorial Growth of the United States 332 

57 Washington and his Cabinet 335 

58 Daniel Boone's Exploring Expedition 340 

59 Mount Vernon 343 

60 Portrait, Napoleon Buonaparte 345 

61 Medal, Washington and Lafayette 353 

62 Portrait, Thomas Jefferson — Initial 354 

63 Jefferson going to his Inauguration 356 

64 Chief-Justice Marshall in the Library of Congress 359 

65 Duel between Hamilton and Burr 363 

66 The Clermont, Fulton's Steamboat 366 

67 Portrait, Elskwatawa, the Prophet 370 

68 Burning of the Richmond (Va.) Theatre 371 

69 Map of the War of 1812-14 (Northern Region) 374 

70 General Scott and the two Indians 376 

71 " Old Ironsides " 378 

72 Capture of the Frolic 379 

73 Sackett's Harbor in 1814 380 

74 Portrait, Captain James Lawrence 382 

75 Perry's Headquarters 384 

76 Perry leaving the Lawrence 385 

77 A Caricature of the Time — (Queen Charlotte and Johnny Bull got 

their Dose of Perry) 386 

78 Portrait, Oliver Hazard Perry 387 

79 Map, Southern Region of the War of 1812-14 388 

80 Weatherford in Jackson's Tent 389 

81 The Attack on Oswego 390 

82 Colonel Miller at Lundy's Lane 392 

83 The Ruins of Fort Erie — Buffalo in the Distance 393 

84 British Soldiers Burning Books in the Library of Congress 394 

85 The Battle of Nevt Orleans 397 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FACE 

t86 Portrait, Emma Willard 402 

187 Chicago in 1820 405 

188 The Old Block-House, Chicago 407 

189 Portrait, John Quincy Adams — Initial 408 

190 Lafayette at the Tomb of Washington 411 

191 Monticello, the Home of Jefferson 415 

192 The First Railroad Train in the United States 416 

193 Portrait, Andrew Jackson 419 

Full-page Portrait, Daniel Websier 421 

194 Portraits, H ayne and Webster 422 

195 Henry Clay Addressing the Senate 425 

196 The United States Bank 426 

197 The Dade Monument at West Point, N. Y 430 

198 Portrait, William Henry Harrison 434 

igg Birthplace of Martin Van Buren .... 435 

200 Portrait, John Tyler 436 

201 The Tomb of Harrison 438 

202 View of Nauvoo City 441 

203 House in which the First Congress of Texas Met 444 

204 Santa anna Rebuked by Houston 446 

205 Capture of the Mexican Battery by Captain May... 450 

206 A Scene at Monterey 452 

207 Map Illustrating the Mexican War 454 

208 On the Summit of the Cordilleras 458 

209 Secretary Preston and the Boatswain 462 

210 Portrait, General Zachary Taylor 463 

211 Bird's-eye View of San Francisco 466 

212 Ashland, the Home of Henry Clay 470 

213 Scenes in Kansas 473 

214 Portrait, James Buchanan 475 

215 " Abraham Lincoln 479 

216 Fort Sumter 480 

Full-page Portrait, Abraham Lincoln 482 

217 Mass Meeting in Union Square, New York — Initial 483 

218 Lincoln's Early Home in Illinois 485 

219 Attack on Fort Sumter from Morris Island 487 

220 "Stonewall" Jackson at the Head of his Brigade 491 

221 Intercepting the Trent 494 

222 Group of Union Volunteers — Initial. 495 

223 Surrender of Fort Donelson 498 

224 The Midnight Council of War 499 

225 Donaldson's Point and Island No. 10 503 

226 Map of Operations in the East 505 

227 Heroism of Colonel Rogers 507 

228 Bird's-eye View of New Orleans 510 

229 Naval Duel between the Monitor and the Merrimac 514 

230 Map of the Peninsula 516 

231 Building a Corduroy Road through a Swamp 517 

232 Portrait, General George B. McClellan 520 

233 General Robert E. Lee 522 

234 Death of General Kearney 525 

235 Storming the Bridge at Antietam. 527 

"i* Tur Mo v :tor at c fa , r^ n 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

237 Reading the Emancipation Proclamation — Initial 531 

238 Running the Batteries at Vicksburg 532 

239 Map of Vicksburg and Vicinity 534 

240 Map of Chattanooga and Vicinity 536 

241 A Charge at Missionary Ridge 538 

242 Lee and Jackson Planning the Battle of Chancellorsville 542 

243 Stonewall Jackson in his Tent 545 

244 Portrait, Major-General George G. Meade 548 

245 Map of Gettysburg and Vicinity 549 

246 Repulsing a Charge at Gettysburg 551 

247 Drafting 556 

248 The National Monument at Gettysburg 559 

249 An Impromptu Fortification — Initial 560 

250 Map of Operations in the West 563 

251 The March to the Sea 565 

252 Crossing the Rapidan— Grant's Telegram 5 68 

253 Map of Grant's Campaign around Richmond 569 

254 Portrait, General Ulysses S. Grant 573 

255 Sheridan's Arrival at Cedar Creek 57& 

256 Naval Battle in Mobile Bay 579 

257 The Alabama 582 

258 Portraits, Sherman and Sheridan 583 

259 Refugees Following the Army — Initial 584 

260 Sherman at the Head of his Troops 586 

261 Portrait, General Joseph E. Johnston 587 

262 City of Richmond 589 

263 Cavalry Charge on the Confederate Wagon-Train 59 1 

264 Signing the Terms of Surrender 593 

265 Portrait, Jefferson Davis 594 

266 Assassination of President Lincoln 59^ 

267 A Scene at the Surrender of Lee 600 

268 Reconciliation— Initial 603 . 

269 The Grand Review— Marching down Pennsylvania Avenue 605 

270 Portrait, Andrew Johnson 607 

271 The Great Eastern in Mid-Ocean Laying the Cable 610 

272 General Grant's Residence at Galena, III., in i860 612 

273 Driving the Last Spike 613 

274 Portrait, Horace Greeley 617 

275 Centennial Medal — Reverse 620 

276 Group of Sioux Indians 623 

277 Portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes 624 

278 The Bland Silver Dollar 627 

279 The White House 62 9 

281 Portraits of Garfield and Arthur 631 

282 Assassination of President Garfie'.d 633 

283 Garfield Looking out upon the Sea at Long Branch 634 

284 Centennial of Battle of Yorktown - 635 

285 Arctic Sledging 638 

286 Grover Cleveland 642 

287 Grant's Birthplace, Tomb, Etc 643 

288 Benjamin Harrison C5 ° 

2S9 James G. Blaine 657 

290 William McKinley G(37 

291 Battle of Manila Bay— Map 67< J 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

292 Treaty Commissioners 686 

293 Theodore Roosevelt 692 

294 The Panama Canal— Map 699 

295 William H. Taft 725 

296 Peary's Ship, "The Roosevelt," at Cape Sheridan 730 

297 Monoplane on the Ground — Biplane in flight 735 

298 The Peace Palace at The Hague 750 

299 Woodrow Wilson 752 

300 Panoramic View of the Panama Canal 755 

301 Col. George Washington Goethals 761 

302 Raising the Flag Over Vera Cruz 763 

303 General Frederic Funston 764 

304 U. S. Army Entering Vera Cruz 765 

305 U. S. Battle Fleet in Vera Cruz Harbor 766 

306 The New York Public Library 772 

307 The Grand Central Terminal 773 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



IHt&k 




-t ;^?se r - 



PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. 

HE authentic history of North 
America is comprised within 
four centuries. All back of that 
rests upon ruins and traditions, 
and is largely mythical. The 
Indians were noc the most 
ancient inhabitants of North 
America. Through the whole 
length of the Mississippi Valley 
are found the remains of a 
numerous and civilized people 
which once occupied this coun- 
try. This race is known as the 
Mound Builders, from the large 
number of mounds which they 
erected, seemingly as monu- 
ments to distinguished dead, or 



10 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



as grand altars for religious purposes. Sixteen miles east of 
Little Rock, Arkansas, are two of these elevations, the larger of 
which is over two hundred and fifty feet in height. Its summit 
is crowned with a magnificent elm which has stood four hun- 
dred years. Near by is a sheet of water known as Mound Lake, 
three and a half miles long and a quarter of a mile broad, the 
result evidently of excavation for the mound material. The 
two mounds are encircled by a ditch which encloses an area 
of over ninety acres. Elsewhere are seen extensive earthworks 
constructed with considerable skill. They crown a steep bluff, 
or are carried across the neck of a peninsula formed by the 
bend of a river. If there is no access to springs or streams, they 
contain artificial reservoirs for holding water. Fort Hill, on the 
Little Miami River, Ohio, consists of an embankment nearly 
four miles in extent, and from ten to twenty feet high, varying 

according to the natural advantages of 
the ground. In Adams county, Ohio, 
is a curious earthwork, representing 
an immense serpent, one thousand feet 
long, holding in its mouth an egg- 
shaped mound one hundred and sixty feet 
in length, and having its tail twined 
into a triple coil. These mounds rarely 
contain more than one skeleton. Many 
tools and ornaments of copper, brass, 
silver, and precious stones, such as 
knives, axes, chisels, bracelets, and beads 
have been found ; as also cloth and 
thread and vases of potteiv. Near 
Nashville, in Tennessee, an idol made of clay and gypsum was ex- 
humed. Roman and Persian coins have been discovered ; and in 
Western New York a silver piece, with the date a.d. 600, found 
far below the surface, furnishes a theme for many a speculation. 
The Mound Builders worked the copper mines about Lake 
Superior, and their old pits are now familiarly known in that 
region as the "ancient diggings." In one of these mines near. 
Eagle Harbor, a mass of copper was found which weighed forty- 
six tons. The block had been separated from the original vein 
and the surface pounded smooth. About it lay stone hammers, 
copper chisels and wedges in abundance, as if the workmen had 
but just departed. Upon these mounds and mines the largest 




THE SERPENT MOUND. 



PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. 



II 



forest trees are now growing. On one mound near Marietta, 
Ohio, there are trees which must have seen at least eight cen- 
turies. The age of the mounds themselves is a matter of conjee 
ture alone. 

" A race that long has passed away 
Built them : a disciplined and populous race 
Heaped with long toil the earth, while yet the Greek 
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 
The glittering Parthenon." — Bryant. 

When the Jesuit missionaries first came to America, thej 
found the Indians not only entirely ignorant of this people, but 
possessed of no tradition concerning them. Whence these un- 
known races came to our shores we know not. It is natural 




"wsis^SK^^KSm 



THE MOUNDS NEAR LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS. 



to suppose, however, that their home was Asia— the birthplace 
of man. Within the past century fifteen Japanese vessels have, it 
is said, been driven by storms across the Pacific Ocean, and 
wrecked on the American coast. Such events may have hap- 
pened anciently, and the shipwrecked crews may have settled the 
new country. Formerly, too, as geologists tell us, before 
Behring Strait was cut through, the two continents were con- 
nected. Parties of adventurers may then have crossed, and 
finding a pleasant land on this side, may have decided to make it 
their home. All is conjecture, however, and we know not when 
nor whence the Mound Builders came, nor when nor whither 
they went. 



!2 EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 

Most curious of all the remains found on this continent are 
those of Arizona. Here are not only Spanish cathedrals dating 
back of the Revolutionary struggle, and ruins of Spanish towns 
indicating an early and extensive colonization, now disappeared, 
which must have been in its glory when as yet only a few woe- 
begone English set dors half starved in their rude cabins along 
the Potomac River and Plymouth Bay ; but recent explorations 
have revealed other and prehistoric remains, belonging to a race 
which has left behind no traditi >n even of its name or origin. 
The Gila Valley alone, it is estimated, must once have been occu- 
pied by one hundred thousand inhabitants. In the great Tonto 
Basin, bounded by the rivers Gila, Verde and Dlack Mesa, and the 
White Mountains, nearly every hill within a range often thousand 
square miles is covered with broken pottery, so perfectly glazed 
that its bright coloring is still preserved. Here are ruins of 
pueblos four stories high, and with walh two feet thick ; aqueducts, 
reservoirs, irrigating canals, and regular fortifications. Along the 
cliffs in many places are multitudes of caves dug into the solid 
rock, where the inhabitants seem to have taken refuge and made a 
iast stand against an invading foe. These caves arc often twenty 
tjet deep, and closed by mason work of stone and cement still 
well preserved. These retreats are only accessible by means of 
ladders, or by narrow paths along the edge of projecting crags, 
where a single fab e step would plunge one to inevitable destruc- 
tion. In the larger caves, the front wall is bastioned and loop- 
lioled ; while in the ceiling of the principal room is a man-hole 
enabling one to enter a scries of chambers with which the whole 
mountain is honeycombed. In the thick deposit of bat-lime 
which now covers the floor, arc broken pieces of pottery like 
those found so abundantly in the ruined villages along the river 
, aulevs. The timbers used in the various rooms were evidently 
cut with -tone hatchets. The chambers arc dark and the walls 
are vet black with the smoke from the fires of the ancient cave- 
dwellers. 

On; can but speculate on the fearful struggle which appar- 
ently forced this people to leave their fortified villages and 
cultivated fields, and to hew for themselves asylums in the rock; 
the long months and years during which they continued the con- 
test in their mountain fortresses; the details of this final death- 
struggl ■ ; and when and how the last of this host yielded, and 
th^ n .lien was blott2d out of existence. 



INDIAN DIALECTS. 13 



THE JMOF(TH AMERICAN l]MDI>N3. 

The first inhabitants of whom we have any definite knowledge 
are the Indians — so named because the earliest European explorers 
of this country supposed they had reached the eastern coast of 
India. The total number of these aborigines, at that time within 
the present limits of the United States, was probably four hundred 
thousand, of whom about one-half lived east of the t Mississippi. 
They all had much the same look, and doubtless a common origin. 
They were, however, divided into numerous tribes and sp£>ke 
different languages. Diligent study of these tongues has classed 
them all into, perhaps, seven great families — the Algonquin, the 
Iroquois, the Mobilian, the Dakotah or Sioux, the Cherokee, the 
Catawba, and the Shoshonee. These are the names by which 
they are commonly known to us, but not, in general, those used 
among the natives. The terms Huron, Iroquois, etc., are only 
nick-names given by the whites ; Sioux is an Algonquin appella- 
tion. The various tribes were divided into clans, each with its 
own symbol, as a tortoise, deer, snipe, or hawk, often tattooed on 
the warrior's breast. Over the clan was a chief or sachem, who 
represented it at the grand councils and governed it according 
to custom and tradition. 




INDIAN SYMBOLS. 



The Algonquins dwelt along the Atlantic coast from Cape 
Fear northward, and were those with whom the Jamestown and 
Plymouth colonists alike came in contact. The Narragansetts, 
Pequods, Massachusetts, Mohegans, Manhattans, Delawares, 
Powhatans, Shawnees, Miamis, Illinois, Sacs, and Foxes, were 
tribes of this wide-spread family. Their memory is perpetuated 
by the histories of Pocahontas, Powhatan, Massasoit, King 
Philip, Black Hawk, Tecumseh, and Pontiac. 

The Iroquois occupied a territory in the heart of the Algon- 
quin region — a tract south of Lake Ontario, covering the head- 
waters of the Susquehanna, Delaware, and Ohio, which General 



14 EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 

Scott well termed the " strategic centre " of the United States. 
Here wns the home of the Five Nations, so famous in all the colonial 
wars. Here Red Jacket and Joseph Brandt figured as characters 
more like ancient Romans than wild forest Indians. In the time 
of their greatest prosperity this confederacy did not number over 
fifteen thousand, and it could not send out much over two thou- 
sand warriors. But they were fierce, bloodthirsty, and restless 
for conquest. Pushing along the valleys from their headquarters 
on the great watershed of Central New York, they carried their 
triumphant arms to the soil of Kentucky and Virginia. Their 
powei- was felt to the Kennebec on the east and the Illinois on the 
west. The Delaware tribe was triumphantly and ignominiously 
styled their " woman." Of the five nations, the Mohawk was the 
most dreaded. When, among the peaceful Indians along the 
Connecticut, a messenger stalked into their council-room exclaim- 
ing, " The Mohawks are come to suck your blood," there was no 
thought of safety except in flight or submission. 

The Mobilians stretched along the Gulf from the Atlantic to 
the Rio Grande. They comprised within their limits the com- 
paratively insignificant tribes of the Uchee and the Natchez. The 
Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and the Chickasaws are interwoven 
with the later history of the country at the south, as the Sioux, 
Miamis, Illinois, Sacs, etc., are on the north. 

The separate languages were completely organized, though no 
savage had ever attempted their analysis, or knew anything 
about sounds, letters, or syllables. The study of their speech 
by Europeans has shown many peculiarities. Thus the Algon- 
quins had no f ; the Choctaws no d ; the Iroquois, except the 
Oneidas, whose tongue was soft and liquid, no /. The Algonquins 
loved consonants, while every word in the Cherokee ended in a 
vowel. They all lacked abstract or general terms. The Algon- 
quins, for example, had no word for oak, but a name for each kind 
of oak. There was no word for fishing, but a specific name for t 
fire-fishing, net-fishing, etc. They always compounded words so 
as to express new ideas. Thus, as the Indian never kneels, when 
Eliot, the famous New England missionary, wished to translate 
that thought, he was forced to use a definition merely, and the 
compound word is eleven syllables long — wutappessittukqus- 
sonnoowehtunkquot. The Indians never said " father " alone, but 
always included with it a possessive pronoun. Consequently the 
Doxology used by Christian Indians reads, " Our Father, his Son, 



THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



15 



and their Holy Ghost." Their tongues were thus peculiarly syn- 
thetic, and often subject, predicate, and object were conjugated 
as one word. The Cherokee language had but eighty-five sylla- 
bles, which were analyzed by an educated Indian known as George 
Guess, who assigned a character to each. Thus one may learn to 
read and write this tongue in a very short time. The Indians 
had no written language, though they used on occasions a species 
of hieroglyphics or picture-writing. A series of rude symbols 
scratched on a tree or rock gave any information desired. 
Schoolcraft gives the following, used by his Indian guides to 
inform their comrades that a company of fourteen whites and 
two Indians had spent the night at that point. Nos. 9, 10 indi- 
cate the white soldiers and their arms ; No. 1 is the captain, with 
a sword ; No. 2 the secretary, with the book ; No. 3 the geolo- 
gist, with a hammer ; Nos. 7, 8 are the guides, without hats ; Nos. 
11, 12 show what they ate in camp ; Nos. 13, 14, 15 indicate how 
many fires they made : 





Hi-W 



SPECIMEN OF INDIAN PICTURE WRITING. 



The Indian was a barbarian. His condition was that known 
in geology as the Stone Age of man, since his implements and 
tools were made of that material. His stone hatchet was so rude 
that to cut down a large forest tree would have required a month's 
time. He had no horse, cow, or other domestic animal of burden. 
He had no knowledge of any metals except gold, silver, and 
copper, and these to a very limited extent. Labor he considered 
as degrading, and fit only for women. His squaw, therefore, 
built his wigwam, cut his wood, and carried his burdens when he 



l6 EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 

journeyed. While he hunted or fished, she cleared the land for 
his corn by burning down the trees, scratched the ground with a 
crooked stick or hoed it with a clam-shell, and dressed skins for 
his clothing. She cooked his food by dropping hot stones into a 
tight willow basket containing materials for soup. The leavings 
of her lord's feast sufficed for her, and the coldest place in the 
wigwam was her seat. He rarely spoke to his wife or children. 
He would sit on the ground for days, leaning his elbows on his 
knees in stupid silence. He was crafty and cruel. His word was 
no protection. False and cunning, he never hesitated to violate a 
treaty when his passions prompted him to hatred. He was hos- 
pitable, and the door of his wigwam was always open to any 
comer, who had but to enter, sit down at the fire, and to be 
served without a word. He would give up his own mat or skin 
that his guest or a passing traveler might rest thereon. He 
remembered a benefit and often saved his benefactor at the peril 
of his life. He loved to gain his end by stratagem and rarely 
met an enemy in fair fight. No victory was prized when the 
conquest cost the life of a warrior. He could endure great 
fatigue, and in his expeditions often lay without shelter in severest 
weather. It was his glory to bear the most horrible tortures 
without sign of pain. 

An Indian wigwam at the best was only a temporary shelter. 
It was built of bark resting on poles, and had an opening at the 
top to let out the smoke and let in the light. The fire was built 
on the ground at the centre. The lodge was moved from place 
to place whenever fancy suggested. The most frequent reason 
was the scarcity of game or fuel. Indeed, it is said that when the 
whites first came to this country the Indians supposed it to be 
because they had consumed all the wood in their own land, and 
that they were in quest of fuel. The Iroquois built larger and 
more permanent dwellings. These were often thirty or forty and 
sometimes over two hundred feet in length, each inhabited by 
several families. Many of these were irregularly gathered in a 
town, on the bank of some river or lake, where they were fortified, 
perhaps, by a palisade and deep ditch. " A person entering one 
of these wigwams on a winter's evening might have beheld," says 
Parkman, " a strange spectacle ; the vista of fires lighting the smoky 
concave ; the bronzed groups encircling each — cooking, eating, 
gambling, or amusing themselves with idle badinage ; wrinkled 
squaws, hideous with three-score years of hardship ; grizzly old 



THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



17 



warriors, scarred with war-club and tomahawk ; young aspirants, 
whose honors were yet to be won ; damsels, gay with ochre and 
wampum ; and restless children, pell-mell with restless dogs. 
Now a tongue of resinous flame painted each wild feature in vivid 
light ; now the fitful gleam expired, and the group vanished from 
sight as the nation has from history." 





INDIAN LIFE. 



The Indians married young, the girls at thirteen or fourteen, 
and the boys by eighteen. Meanwhile the latter were required 
to show their manhood by long endurance of famine and by 
bringing in plenty of game. A marriageable girl wore an adver- 
tisement of the fact upon her head. The marriage ceremony 
often consisted of nothing more than the bride's bringing to the 
bridegroom a dish of cooked corn and an armful of fuel. 

War and the chase were the natural state of the Indian. The 
battle-field and the hunting-ground contained everything of 
special honor or value. The, bow was placed in the boy's hands 
as soon as he could grasp it. His training henceforth was to 
shoot the arrow, to glide upon the snow-shoe, to hurl the toma- 
hawk, and to cast the spear. To dance the war-dance, to sing the 
war-song, to go forth on the war-path, to lie in wait for his 
enemy, and to bring back the scalp of one whom he had slain, were 
2 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



his highest delight. Two or three warriors roaming through 
the forest, with only a bag of pounded corn hanging at the side 
for food, would watch a hostile village or party for weeks, hiding 
in rocks or thickets, awaiting a chance for a surprise, to assassi- 
nate a defenceless man, woman, or child ; then hastily cutting off 
the scalp, as proof of their prowess, would hurry home again in 
triumph. The war party marched in single file, the chief in 
advance, while the last one erased the tracks they had made. A 
captive was often brutally mangled before reaching the village of 








;%Wi:^k J^h 







V S 



m> M 






AN INDIAN FAMILY MOVING. 



his captors. Here he was obliged to run the gauntlet between a 
double row of its entire population, who turned out to receive 
him, each inflicting a blow as he passed. The council decided 
his fate. He might be adopted into some family, to supply the 
place of a lost member, or be sentenced to the torture. This was 
too horrible for description. The body was gashed with knives, 
the hair and beard were torn out, the fingers and toes were 
wrenched off, the flesh was seared with red-hot stones and punc- 
tured with sharpened sticks ; and finally the bleeding, mangled 
body was tied to a stake and burned to ashes. W hile life lasted 
the victim of their cruelty uttered no groan, but sang the war- 
song of his clan, boasted of his exploits, told the names of those 
whom he had slain, and taunted them with their unskilfulness in 
.devising tortures in comparison with those which he had himselt 
inflicted on their kinsmen, 



1192.] DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 19 

The religion cf the Indian varied greatly in different tribes. 
Those of New England had no word for God, and there is no 
evidence of a religious ceremony among them. The Iroquois 
hid faith in a Great Spirit, and in happy hunting-grounds where 
the departed warrior might hope to hunt and feast and be as lazy 
as he pleased. The Natchez had temples for the worship of the 
sun, and sacred fires which were never allowed to expire. The 
Indians believed in protecting spirits, who cared not alone for 
human beings but even for animals. They were cautious about 
giving them any offence, frequently offering them gifts to pro- 
pitiate their favor. They handled carefully the bones of beaver, 
buffalo, deer, and other game, lest the spirits of the dead might 
inform those of the living, and teach them to escape the hunter's 
toils. They would often talk to animals as if they were human 
beings, and beg their pardon for having wounded them, explain- 
ing the necessity which compelled the attack, and exhorting the 
sufferer to endure the pain so as not to bring disgrace on his 
family. The Indian invoked the aid of these various powers, 
whose presence he acknowledged in nature, and implicitly relied 
on their protection. He was anxious to have such a guardian for 
himself. The young Chippewa, for example, retired to a solitary 
lodge in the forest, blackened his face, and fasted for days, that he 
might become pure and exalted enough to behold in a vision his 
protecting deity. Everywhere there was an idea of sin which 
was to be atoned for, of the duty of self-denial and sacrifice, and 
of rewards and punishments for good and evil. So prevalent was 
this sentiment that Le Clercq thought one of the apostles must 
have reached America and taught the Indians the sublime 
truths of Revelation. 



DI£COVEF(Y OF AMERICA. 

As early as the tenth century, the Northmen settled Green- 
land, whence, according to the Icelandic Sagas, their venture- 
some sailors pushed westward, discovering Newfoundland, Nova 
Scotia, and Vinland or Vineland, which is generally supposed to 
be the coast of New England. After that, other adventurers 
repeatedly visited the New World, explored the country, and 
bartered with the natives. A rich Icelander, named Thorfinn 



20 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



[1492 




NORMAN SHIP (FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY). 



Karlsemi, spent three winters on the coast of Massachusetts, 
where his wife bore him a son named Snorre, said to be the 

first child born of Euro- 
pean parents in this coun- 
try. The Northmen, how- 
ever, finally forgot the 
way across the ocean, 
and almost the existence 
of the Vinland their an- 
cestors had discovered. 
They left behind them, 
so far as we know, not a 
trace of their occupation, 
and were it not for their 
legends, we should not 
have dreamed that they 
ever visited our shores. 
The old stone tower at 
Newport, Rhode Island, 
long thought to have been erected by the Norsemen, is very like 
some which are still standing in the part of England from which 
Governor Arnold came ; while the singular inscription on the 
rock at Dighton was quite probably made by the Indians. 

Centuries passed in which no vessel essayed the forgotten 
assage across the far-stretching Atlantic. The shadows of the 
Middle Ages were dispersed, and Europe 
was kindling with newly awakened life. 
The Crusades had developed the mari- 
time importance of such Italian cities as 
Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. A taste for 
luxury had grown and strengthened. 
The art of printing by movable types 
had just been invented, and books of 
travel were eagerly read. Marco Polo 
and other eastern travelers had told the 
most marvelous stories of Asiatic coun- 
tries, of " Cathay" (China) and the good- 
liest island of " Cipango " (Japan), where 
the soil sparkled with rubies and diamonds, and pearls were as 
plentiful as pebbles. An extensive trade had been opened up with 
the East. The shawls, spices, precious stones, and silks of India 




THE ANCIENT TOWER AT NEWPORT. 



1492.] DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 21 

and Persia were brought to Europe, and sold in the Western marts. 
But the route was tedious. The goods were borne by caravans 
to the Red Sea, carried by camels to the Nile, and thence shipped 
across the Mediterranean to Italy. The problem of the age was 
how to reach the East by sea, and thus transport these rich pro- 
ducts in ships directly to Europe. The earth was generally be- 
lieved to be a great flat plain, washed on every side by one vast 
ocean. A few wise geographers had already conceived the novel 
idea of its rotundity. But, in their calculations the globe was 
very much smaller than we now know it to be, and Asia extended 
much further to the east ; so, by sailing westward from Europe 
they expected, perhaps by a short voyage, to reach the eastern 
shore of their own continent, which was to them the only one in 
the world. " It is singular," says Washington Irving, " how much 
the success of this great undertaking depended upon two happy 
errors, the imaginary extent of Asia to 
the East, and the supposed smallness 
of the earth ; both, errors of the most 
learned and profound philosophers, 
but without which Columbus would 
hardly have ventured upon his en- 
terprise." Christopher Columbus, a 
learned navigator of Genoa, enthusi- 
astically adopted these views. Many 
events conspired to confirm his belief. 
A globe, published by Martin Behaim, 
one of Columbus's friends, in 1492 — the 
very year Columbus made his west- 
ward voyage — shows very clearly the current idea at that time. 
It is curious to notice how in this map the dry details of geography 
are enlivened by mermaids with golden tresses and azure eyes, 
sea-serpents, and various monsters supposed to inhabit these un- 
known regions. 

A westerly gale washed on the coast of Portugal a piece of 
curiously carved wood. At the Madeiras, canes of a tropical 
growth were picked up on the beach, and once the bodies of two 
men of an unknown race were cast upon the shore. At last, 
Columbus determined to test the new theory by actually under- 
taking the perilous voyage. Eighteen years of weary waiting 
followed. He sought aid in Genoa, Venice, and Portugal ; but in 
vain. Finally, after innumerable repulses, he obtained an audience 




22 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



[1492. 






Mnre 



y l_M 1^Jm~-?— 4~l?rSP*5ps Cancrl ,•••( Tropic^if 



^ >%> 






Tropic U^°L— ^-—r-r „ ^-""^ M&V \' 

.c-7 ****? Ir,!^' 



(Indian ^ j teg^*" (Equator) ^ 
Ocean) "V^-"" 







■^ -^ Eq umoctiuiff Prient <^> 



JTT 



Oceanug I D( j; 



<3 



v 



- C\i$j<^\d entalis 



S} 







V s £ 



|( TropicV>of XtlcEfehij- 



Jav„ 










^ 



<*\C5» 



jADfar 



A 



the eastern hemisphere.— From Behatm's Glebe, 1492. 

with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. His demands seeming 
extravagant, he was refused. He left the court, and was already 
two leagues away, when Isabella, convinced of the grandeur of 
his scheme, called him back and pledged her own jewels to raise 
the necessary funds. This sacrifice, however, was not needed, as 
the court treasurer advanced money for the outfit. Three ships 
were equipped — the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. The 
first only was decked, the other two being merely open boats, or 
caravels. The sailors were many of them impressed, the bravest 
seamen shrinking from this hazardous undertaking. Columbus 
sailed from Palos, August 3, 1492. Touching only at the Cana- 
ries, he struck out boldly to the west. 

Forty days had come and gone. Fresh terrors were born in 
the hearts of his fearful crew. All the laws of nature seemed 



1492.] 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 



23 




THE western hemisphere.— From Bekaim's Globe, 1492. 

changing. The needle no longer pointed to the star in the north, 
and they were alone, without a guide, in the vast, trackless ocean. 
The trade-winds blew them steadily westward, and there was no 
hope of returning against it. They came into the Sargasso Sea, 
and now they should certainly perish in the stagnant waters. 
At times, signs of land appeared, and their hearts revived as they 
saw in the distant horizon the semblance of a shore. But it was 
only the clouds which mocked their hopes, and which faded away, 
leaving them still on a boundless sea. Still the days came and 
went, and still their prows, westward bent, pointed only to 

" Long ridgy waves their white manes rearing, 
And in the broad gleam disappearing ; 
The broadened, blazing sun declining, 
And western waves, like fire-floods, shining." 



24 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



[1492. 




COLUMBUS DISCOVERING LAND. 



Aceamo 



At last they became turbu- 
lent and clamorous. They 
exclaimed against Colum- 
bus as a wild fanatic. They 
thought of their far-away 
homes, and demanded a 
return from this hopeless 

voyage. They even resolved to throw the admiral overboard if 

he persisted in a refusal. But his iron will beat down their feebler 

purposes, and he sternly reminded 

them that the expedition had been 

sent out to seek the Indies, and 

added that, happen what might, by 

God's blessing, he should persevere 

until he accomplished the enterprise. 
The very next day brought new 

hope. Fresh -water weeds floated 

past their ships; a branch of thorn 

with berries on it ; and, above all, a 

carved staff, which they eagerly ex- 
amined. Not only land, but inhab- 
ited land was before them. In the 

evening, Columbus, standing on the 

prow of his vessel, saw a light faintly 

glimmering in the horizon. At two 

in the morning, a Shot from the (From a drawing attributed to Columbus., 




1492.] 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 



25 



Pinta announced the joyful intelligence that land was in sight 
The dream of Columbus was realized at last. On that mem- 
orable Friday morning, October 12, 1492, a shore, green with 
tropical verdure, lay smiling before him. The perfume of flowers 
filled the air, and beautiful birds hovered round singing, as it were, 
" the songs of the angels." Clad in scarlet, and bearing in his 
hand the royal banner of Spain, he stepped upon the land, kissing 
it in an overflow of joy and gratitude. Thanking God for His 
goodness, and planting the sacred cross, he took formal posses- 
sion of the country in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella. He 
called the island San Salvador. Believing that he had reached 




COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION. 



the islands lying off the eastern coast of India, he named them 
the West Indies, and the simple natives who flocked down to 
the shore to witness his arrival he called Indians. Afterward 
Columbus visited Cuba and Hayti. He actually sent an envoy 
to a chief in the interior of Cuba, supposing him to be the king 
of Tartary. Hayti he thought to be the Ophir of Solomon. 

On his return to Spain, Columbus was received with the great- 
est enthusiasm. He was accorded the rare honor of telling his 
story seated in the presence of the king and queen. When he 
dilated upon the plants, birds, gold, and, above all, the natives who 
might yet be converted to the true faith, the two sovereigns fell 
upon their knees, while the choir sang a hymn of thanksgiving. 



26 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



[11D8. 




TOMB OF COLUMBUS AT HAVANA. 



Columbus afterward made three other voyages of discovery. 
In 1498 he reached the mouth of the Orinoco, which he con- 
sidered the great river Gihon, having 
its source in the Garden of Eden. His 
good fortune, however, had long since 
deserted him. Malice and envy did 
their worst. He was sent home from 
Hispaniola in chains, and died at last 
a worn-out, disgraced old man, igno- 
rant of the fact that he had discovered 
a New World. 

Meanwhile, to other European eyes 
than those of Columbus had been grant- 
ed the first sight of the mainland. John 
Cabot, a Venetian, sailing under a com- 
mission from Henry VII. of England, 
discovered Cape Breton, probably in 
1494. He, however, like Columbus, 
was seeking the route to the Indies, and supposed this to be the 
territory of the " Great Cham," king of Tartary. Sebastian Cabot 
continued his father's explorations, and sailed along the coast as 
far south as Maryland. He became convinced that it was not the 
eastern coast of Asia, but a new continent, that had been discov- 
ered. As Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, about this time (1498) 
rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and found the long-sought way 
to the East, little attention was paid to the discoveries of Cabot. 
" He gave a continent to England," says Biddle, " yet no man can 
point to the few feet of earth she has allowed him in return." 
The New World was not destined to receive its name from either 
Cabot or Columbus. Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator, 
and a friend of Columbus, accompanied an expedition which 
reached the continent, and on his return wrote some letters de- 
scribing his discoveries. These were published by a German 
geographer, who proposed that the new country should be called 
America, in honor of his hero. People liked the name, and it 
soon came into general use. 




CHAPTER II. 



EXPLORATIONS JJ\ J (b SETTLEMENTS. 




T^ ADVENTURERS, thirsting for gold and glory, 
t£V now flocked to America — the land of wonder 
and mystery. Spanish, French, and English 
were eager to explore this new and richer 
Cathay. Ponce de Leon, an aged cava- 
lier, sailed in search of a miraculous foun- 
tain said to exist somewhere in the regions 
discovered by Columbus, whose magical 
waters, flowing over beds of gold and 
gems, would ensure to the old a second 
youth and vigor. He did not find the fountain, but he came 
in sight of a land blooming with flowers. It was Easter Sun- 
day (15 12), a day which the Spaniards call Pascua Florida, or 
Flowery Easter. So he gave the name Florida to this beautiful 
region. 

The following year Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and 
from the top of the Andes first caught sight of the wide expanse 
of the Pacific Ocean glittering in the morning sun. Reverently 
kneeling, he thanked God for the wonderful vision. Descending 
to the shore, he waded into the water, bearing his drawn sword 
in one hand and the banner of Castile in the other, taking pos- 
session of the ocean, and all the coasts washed by its waters, for 
the crown of Spain. 

Cortez, with a handful of followers, took possession of Mexico 
and all the fabulous wealth of the Montezumas. Pizarro con- 
quered Peru, and revelled in the riches of the Incas. 

De Soto, with a chosen band, explored the fastnesses of 
Florida, hoping to find " a second Mexico with its royal palace 
and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its Temple of the 
Sun enriched with a frieze of gold." Gay cavaliers with helmet 



28 



EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA. 



[1541. 



and lance, priests with holy vestments and vessels, marched 
through the wilderness for years. With the fluttering of ban- 
ners and the clangor of trumpets, they followed the ignis fatuns 




DE SOTO S MARCH. 



of gold and treasure they hoped to find. Thus they traversed 
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In 1 541 they discovered the 
Mississippi River. Beneath its muddy waters De Soto himself 

found a grave. It was all the New 
World had to give its most knightly 
adventurer. 

The French eagerly followed in 
the footsteps of the Spaniards. 
Verazzani, a Florentine in the ser- 
vice of Francis I., coasted along the 
shores of Carolina and New Jersey, 
and entered the present harbors 
of Newport and New York. He 
named the country New France, 
and claimed it all for his king. 
The report published on his re- 
turn was the earliest account given of the eastern coast of the 
He thought the savages were " like the people 




JACQUES CART1ER. 



United States. 



1534.] 



FRENCH EXPLORATIONS. 



29 




in the uttermost parts of China," and that the country was " not 
void of drugs and spices and other riches of gold, seeing that the 
color of the land doth so much 
argue it." In 1534, Cartier dis- 
covered a magnificent river, 
which, the next year, he ascended 
to the present site of Montreal. In 
honor of the day, he named the 
part of the gulf he entered, St. 
Lawrence — a term that has since 
spread to the river and the rest 
of the gulf. 

Coligny, the famous French 
admiral, formed a plan of found- 
ing an empire in the New World 
which should offer an asylum to 
the distressed Huguenots. It was to be a colony based on 
religious ideas. This was half a century before the Piigrims 




ADMIRAL COLIGNY. 



So 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[15G2 



landed at Plymouth. The attempt seemed full of promise, " but 
no Mayflower ever sailed from a French port." Jean Ribaut 
commanded the first expedition (1562). He landed at Port Royal. 
The company were delighted with the novelty of the wild forest 
scenes. The new land seemed to them " the finest, fruitfulest, and 
pleasantest of all the world." A fort was erected, and named 
Carolina, after Charles IX. of France. Thirty men were selected 
to remain, while Ribaut returned to France. This little party 
was now alone with the savage and the wilderness. They found 
no gold. Hunger came, and home-sickness. The green woods 
became a dismal prison, and the solitude a terror. They resolved 
to escape at every peril. Building a frail bark, they turned the 
prow toward France. A storm shattered their ship. At last, to 
avoid starvation, they killed and ate one of their own number, 
whom the lot decided should die for the rest. This horrible food 
only prolonged their lives for a new misfortune. After perils 
and sufferings untold, they had just come in sight of their own 
cherished coast when they were taken prisoners and carried to 
England. 

Two years afterward a second attempt was made by Laudon- 
niere,.and a fort built on St. John's River, or the River of May, as 
they styled it. Here his company of adventurers, greedy of gain 

and of gold, quar- 
reled among them- 
selves, fought with 
the Indians, and, 
too lazy to till the 
land, starved as 
easily and slowly 
as they could. 
But the Spanish 
were by no means 
willing to relin- 
quish their claim 
to Florida — as all 
North America 
was at that time 
called by them. 
Melendez, a brutal soldier, was sent by Philip II. to occupy Florida 
and drive out the French. They sighted land on St. Augustine's 
day (August 28, 1565). The foundations of a town, now the oldest 




THE OLD GATEWAV AT ST. AUGUSTINE, KLOKIDA. 



1565.] ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS. 3 1 

in the United States, were soon laid and named in honor of that 
saint. Burning with zeal, Menendez, with five hundred soldiers, 
then hurried northward through the wilderness, and in the midst 
of a terrible tempest attacked the French fort and massacred 
nearly all the colonists. 

Charles IX. did nothing to avenge the deed. A bold Gascon, 
Dominique de Gourges, however, equipped a fleet at his own 
expense, sailed across the ocean, stormed the Spanish forts on 
the River of May, and put the garrison to the sword, under the 
very trees where they had slaughtered the captured Huguenots. 
Thus ended, for a time, the French attempts in the New World. 

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the English made 
repeated efforts to explore and colonize this country. Frobisher, 
seeking in vain to find the northwest passage to India, entered 
Baffin's Bay, and claimed the whole country for the crown of 
England. Drake, following in the footsteps of Magellan, rounded 
Cape Horn, ascended the western shore of America as far as 
the present boundary of Oregon, and, returning, refitted his 
ship in some harbor of California (1579). Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
sought to establish a colony in Newfoundland. Returning home 
in the Squirrel, a little bark of ten tons, it was overtaken by a 
fearful storm. Sitting aft, with a book in his hand, Gilbert was 
heard to cry out to his companions in the other ship, " We are 
as near Heaven by sea as by land." That night the lights of the 
Squirrel suddenly disappeared, and neither ship nor sailors were 
ever seen again. Gilbert's half-brother, the famous Sir Walter 
Raleigh, having secured a patent for a vast extent of territory 
which he called Virginia, in honor of the " Virgin Queen " of 
England, made several unsuccessful attempts to establish settle- 
ments therein. The first colony was planted on Roanoke Island 
(1585). Instead of tilling the ground, the settlers hunted for gold. 
Finding none, they were only too glad to return home with 
Drake, who happened to stop there on one of his buccaneering 
expeditions. They brought back with them the weed which the 
lethargic Indians used for smoking, and the custom of "drinking 
tobacco," as it was called, soon became exceedingly popular, in 
spite of the anathemas of the physicians, the Puritans, and even 
of King James himself, who wrote a tract against its use. It is 
said that one day, when Raleigh was sitting in his study privately 
practicing this new accomolishment, his servant entered with a 
tankard of ale. Seeing his master with a cloud of smoke issuing 



32 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1587. 



from his mouth, the terrified domestic dashed the ale in his face as 
a partial extinguisher, and rushed down the stairs screaming for 
instant help, for Sir Walter would soon be burnt to ashes. 

Another colony 

«i 



was now sent to 
Virginia. It hap- 
pily consisted of 
families. The pre- 
sence of woman 
brought cheerful- 
ness and beauty, 
and in the pros- 
pect of home cir- 
cles and influence 
it bade fair to be 
permanent. The 
" City of Raleigh " 
was founded on 
the site of the 
former settlement. 
A faithful Indian 
chief was here bap- 
tized and received the rank of a feudal 
baron — Lord of Roanoke. Here, also, 
was born the first child of English parents on 
the soil of the United States — Virginia Dare, grand-daughter of 
Governor White. The threatened invasion of the Armada occu- 
pying the attention of England, it was three years before supplies 
were sent out to the infant colony. When at last the 'ong-delayed 
ship sailed into the harbor she found it silent as the grave. 
The homes were all deserted, and not a living thing remained 
to tell the fate of their once hopeful occupants. On the 
trunk Of a tree was found carved the name of a distant island, 
Croatan. The lateness of the season forbade any attempt to seek 
the island, and, appalled by the desolation and ruin which they 
beheld, the fleet returned without leaving a settler behind. To 
this day the " Lost Colony of Roanoke " remains a mystery. 

A century had now passed since the discovery of America, but 
as yet neither English nor French had planted a permanent colony, 
save in the graves of their heroic adventurers. The Spaniards 
had, north of the Gulf of Mexico, only a feeble settlement at 




1600.] 



SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 



33 




St. Augustine and another at 

Santa Fe. The difficulties 

which attended the passage 

of the Atlantic, the perils of 

the wilderness, the treachery 

6f the Indians, all conspired to prevent the rapid colonization of 

the New World. The experience of every attempt could be 

summed up in the quaint language of the English company under 

Captain Popham, " We found only extreme extremities." 

Early in the seventeenth century, several successful trading 
voyages called the attention of English merchants and noblemen 
to the question of American colonization. King James I. accord- 
ingly divided the vast territory called Virginia, extending from 
Cape Fear to Passamaquoddy Bay, between two rival companies, 
the London and the Plymouth. The former was to have the 
southern, and the latter the northern portion ; and, to prevent 
disputes, their settlements were to be at least one hundred miles 
apart. All the region south of this grant was known as Florida, 
and all north, as New France. A book of the time defines Vir- 
ginia as " that country of the earth which the ancients called 
Mormosa, between Florida and New France." 



34 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1607. 



gETTLEJVIENT OF VIF^QIjNI A. 

On April 26, 1607, a fleet of three vessels sent out by the 
London Company entered Chesapeake Bay. Captain John 
Smith, afterward called " The Father of Virginia," was on board, 
but in chains, a victim to the jealousy of meaner men. As they 
rode into that magnificent harbor, they passed two headlands, 
which they called Charles and Henry, after their young princes 
at home. The good anchorage inside suggested the name Old 
Point Comfort, and the noble stream they now ascended was 
styled James River, after the king. Their first settlement was 

also loyally christened James- 
town. The crumbling, ivy- 
clad church tower still stand- 
ing on the banks of the James, 
about fifty miles from its mouth, 
marks the site of the oldest Eng- 
lish settlement in the United 
States. The colonists were 
poorly qualified for the work 
they had undertaken. There 
were no families, yet they were 
to establish homes in the wil- 
derness. There were houses 
to build, yet they numbered 
only four carpenters to forty- 
eight labor -despising gentle- 
men. They were to lay the 
foundations of a colony, yet they had but twelve laborers. The 
first year, the gentlemen spent their time in searching for gold, 
when they should have been planting corn. Food soon became 
scarce. Before autumn, sickness swept away half their number. 
Wingfield, the president of the council appointed by the king for 
their government, was unfaithful and avaricious, and even tried 
to escape to the Indies with the best of their scanty stores. 

Smith, by the power of his genius, now rose to command. 
" He proved more wakeful to gather provisions than the covet- 
ous were to find gold ; and strove to keep the country more than 
the faint-hearted to abandon it." He declared that " He who 
will not work may not eat." He was the first to clearly compre- 




TriE RUINS AT JAMESTOWN. 



1607.] 



SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 



35 



hend that nothing was to be gained by the colony except through 
labor. He taught the gentlemen to swing the axe until they 
became accomplished wood-cutters. Enforcing morality as well 
as industry, he kept an account of all profanity, and at night 
poured a cup of cold water down the sleeves of the offenders. 
Yet the colonists, we are told, " built a church that cost fifty 
pounds and a tavern that cost five hundred." Smith wrote home: 
" I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, 
gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers -up of 
trees' roots than a thousand such as we have." 




SMITH SHOWING HIS COMPASS TO THE INDIANS. 



Meanwhile, Smith made many expeditions, cultivating the 
friendship of the Indians, exploring the country, and bringing 
back supplies of food for the colony. He went northward as far 
as Maine, and on one of his maps the names " Plymouth " and 
" Cape Ann " first appear. In an expedition up the Chesapeake, 
he was taken prisoner by the Indians. With great coolness he 
amused his captors by an astronomical lecture, exhibiting his 
compass, and showing them how " the sun did chase the night 
round about the world continually." They allowed him to send 
letters to Jamestown, and, having no idea of a written language 
themselves, were astonished at his making the paper talk to his 
friends of his condition. With commendable forethought, the gun- 
powder taken from him was carefully laid aside for planting the 



36 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1608. 






It; 



'-^ 



next year. The illustrious captive was carried from place to place 
over the same peninsula since rendered famous by McClellan's 
campaign. On being brought to the great chief Powhatan, his 
good fortune seemed to fail him, and he was condemned to die. 
According to Smith's account, his head was laid on a stone, and 
the Indian's war-club was raised to strike the final blow, when 
Pocahontas, the young daughter of the chief, whose love the cap- 
tive had won, rushed forward, threw her arms about his neck 
and arrested the descending blow. Powhatan, touched by this 
act of devotion, released the prisoner. 

The little Indian maiden often thereafter aided the colonists, 
bringing them food and warning them of danger. She grew 

up to be a beauti- 
ful woman and was 
converted to the 
Christian religion. 
In the little church 
at Jamestown she 
was baptized from 
the pine trough 
which was used as 
a font, and in her 
broken English plighted her faith to 
a young planter named John Rolfe. In 
1616 he took his dusky wife to England. 
Lady Rebecca, as she was called, " the 
^i first Christian ever of her nation," by her 
naive simplicity and goodness, won universal 
admiration. It is said, however, that King 
James was jealous of Rolfe, fearing that, " hav- 
ing married an Indian princess, he might lay claim to the crown 
of Virginia." So high did the tide of royalty run in those days 
that Rolfe came near being called to account for having pre- 
sumed, a private person, to marry into the royal family of even a 
petty Indian tribe. Owing to this same jealousy, Smith dared 
not allow Rebecca to call him father, as she had been accustomed 
to do. Just as she was preparing to return to her wilderness 
home, Lady Rebecca died, leaving, however, a son, from whom 
some of the most distinguished families of Virginia have been 
proud to boast their descent. 

Meanwhile, Smith was wounded and forced to return to 







I'OCAHONTAS. 



1609.] SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 37 

England. He never received for all his services a foot of ground, 
not even the house he had built, nor the land he had cultivated. 
Deprived of his care, everything went to ruin. A winter of hor- 
rible famine — long remembered in their annals as the " Starving 
Time" — ensued. Thirty of their number seized a ship and 
turned pirates. In six months the colony was reduced from five 
hundred to sixty. These fled in despair from the terrible place — 
some even bent upon burning the town where they had suffered so 
fearfully. As, dropping down the river, they neared the open 
sea, they met their new governor, Lord Delaware, coming with 
supplies. A sudden revulsion of feeling followed. Overawed at 
the change in their condition, they returned to their deserted 
homes with a chastened joy. " It is the Lord of Hosts ! " said 
they ; " God will raise our state and build his church in this 
excellent clime." 

Now came better times. A new charter was obtained from 
the king. The council in London, which had heretofore stupidly 
tried to govern the colony, was abolished. The settlers obtained 
"a hande in governing of themselves." July 30, 1619, the first 
legislative body was assembled in America. It consisted of the 
governor, council, and the house of burgesses, or deputies from the 
different boroughs or plantations. Every freeman had the right 
to vote. A written constitution was granted, and the foundations 
of civil liberty were laid in Virginia. A hardier and better class 
of men began to flock to the New World. New settlements 
were established and plantations lined both banks of the James 
River as far as the present site of Richmond. 

Tobacco had proved a valuable article of export. It was 
cultivated so eagerly that at one time the gardens and even the 
public squares and streets of Jamestown were planted with it. 
The production of this staple greatly increased the demand for 
labor. At first "apprenticed servants" were sent over from 
England and bound out to the planters for a term of years ; being 
often men who had committed some crime or had rebelled 
against the government. In 1619, twenty negroes were brought 
by a Dutch ship and were quickly purchased by the planters. 
From this small beginning sprang the institution of slavery, which 
afterward became so important an element in the history of the 
United States. 

As yet, few of the feebler sex had dared to cross the At- 
lantic, but about this time the proprietors sent out a load of 



38 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1619. 



industrious, virtuous young women, who were sold as wives to the 
planters for one hundred pounds of tobacco per head. So great 
was the demand that, as the records quaintly tell us, " one widow " 

who was sent over 
in a subsequent lot 
went readily with 
the rest, and the 
price of the " faire 
maidens" ran up 
to a hundred and 
fifty pounds of 
the market weed. 
Domestic ties 
were now formed, 
homes established, 
and the perma- 
nence of the col- 
ony was insured. 

During the life 
of Powhatan, 
there was peace 
with the Indians, 
but after his death they resolved to exter- 
minate the colony (1622). Distributing 
themselves in small parties, they entered the 
houses and even sat down at the tables of those whose death they 
were planning. At a given signal they fell upon the whites in all 
the outlying plantations. Jamestown fortunately escaped, through 
the faithfulness of a converted Indian. A merciless war ensued. 
After a second massacre, some years later, the Indians were ex- 
pelled from the region, and their rich lands along the York and 
the James occupied by the planters. 

According to the idea of King James, the London Company 
was too willing to grant rights to the colonists. He therefore 
took away its charter and made Virginia a royal province 
(1624). Thereafter the king appointed the governor and the 
council, though the colony retained its assembly. The royal 
governors were oftentimes unprincipled men, who ruled for their 
own good and not that of the settlers, showing no sympathy for 
the province and no care for the people. The Navigation Acts 
passed by the parliament in 1660, which were intended to give 




& 1 



1060.] SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 39 

England the control of the trade of the colonies, pressed heavily 
on Virginia. They required that the commerce of the colony 
should be carried on in English vessels, all their tobacco shipped 
to England, and all their goods purchased in that country. 

The colony contained few towns or centres ol influence. The 
cultivation of tobacco, as the great staple, and the introduction of 
slaves, naturally led to the establishment of large estates. These 
often descended to the eldest son and were perpetuated in the 
family. The great proprietors were generally men of intelligence, 
accustomed to control. They became the magistrates and mem- 
bers of the council and assembly. A powerful landed aris- 
tocracy was thus growing up and obtaining rule in the prov- 
ince. Virginia was also intensely royal. During the civil war in 
England it sided with the king. After the execution of Charles I. 
many loyalists took refuge on the shores of the Chesapeake. There 
they found "every house a hostelry and every planter a friend." 
At one time there was even a possibility of the young prince 
coming to the New World. Cromwell, however, sent over a 
ship of war to Virginia, and the colonists quickly submitted. 

Under the Commonwealth, the People of Virginia were 
allowed to elect their own officers and to enjoy all the privileges 
of an equal franchise. A change, however, was at hand. The 
news of the Restoration of Charles II. aroused transports of joy, 
but it was the knell to the political privileges of the common 
people. The next assembly (1661) consisted almost entirely of 
cavaliers and great landholders. The Church of England was 
made that of the colony. All had to contribute to its support. 
In each parish a board of vestrymen was appointed, with power 
to assess taxes and fill any vacancy in its body. Dissenters 
were heavily punished. A fine of twenty pounds was imposed 
on absentees from church. Baptists were declared to be "filled 
with new-fangled conceits of their own heretical invention." A 
member who was thought to be kindly disposed toward the 
Quakers was expelled from the Board of Burgesses. The right 
of suffrage was confined to freeholders and housekeepers. The 
vestrymen became a close corporation and imposed taxes at 
pleasure. The assemblymen remained in office after their term 
had expired, and voted themselves a daily pay of two hundred 
and fifty pounds of tobacco (about nine dollars in value) — an 
enormous salary for those days of poverty. 

The common people, feeling themselves deprived of the 



40 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1676. 



political rights they had so long enjoyed, were ready for an 
uprising. Little knots of men gathered in the gloom of the 
woods to talk over their wrongs. A young planter named 
Nathaniel Bacon, known in history as the " Virginia Rebel," 
sympathizing with the democracy, became its leader, July, 1676. 
Governor Berkeley not proving able to protect the frontier from 
the Indians, Bacon rallied the frightened yeomanry, put the In- 
dians to rout, and then, returning, forced Berkeley to dissolve the 
old assembly and issue writs for a new election. The governor, 
however, failed to keep faith, and civil war broke out. James- 
town was burnt, patriots firing their 
own houses, lest they might protect 
the enemies to their liberty. Bacon 
died in the midst of success. Dis- 
pirited by his loss, 
the people scat- 
tered their forces. 
The principal men 
were hunted down 
with ferocious 
zeal. Hansford, 
a gallant native 
Virginian, per- 
ished on the scaf- 
fold, the first mar- 
tyr to the cause 
of American lib- 
erty. His last 
words were, " I 
die a loyal subject 
and a lover of my 
country." As 
William Drummond was brought in, the vindictive Berkeley, 
bowing low, remarked with cruel mockery, " I am more glad to 
see you than any man in Virginia. You shall be hanged in 
half an hour." The patriot was condemned at one o'clock and 
hanged at four the same day. The gallows received twenty-two 
victims, and yet Berkeley's revenge was not satisfied. Charles II., 
when he heard the tidings, impatiently exclaimed, " The old fool 
has taken more lives in that naked country than I did for the mur- 
der of my father." 




DRUMMOND BROUGHT BEFORE BERKELEY. 



1676.] SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND. 4 1 

Berkeley was recalled. But the rebellion had been a century 
too early. The governor who succeeded ruled more arbitrarily 
than ever. The king appointed all officers of the colony. Even 
the members of the assembly were hereafter elected only by free- 
holders. Yet as the spirit of liberty spread, the people found 
means to thwart their oppressors, and in spite of adverse circum- 
stances, the colony grew rapidly in wealth and population. 
" There was no need of a scramble ; abundance gushed from the 
earth for all. The morasses were alive with water-fowl ; the 
creeks abounded with oysters, heaped together in inexhaustible 
beds ; the rivers were alive with fish ; the forests were nimble 
with game ; the woods rustled with coveys of quails and wild 
turkeys, while they rung with the merry notes of singing 
birds ; and hogs, swarming like vermin, ran at large in troops. 
It was the best poor man's country in the world." In 1688 it 
had a population of fifty thousand, and exported twenty-five 
thousand hogsheads of tobacco, on which England levied a tax 
of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. 



SETTLEMENT Of ^AF(YLAJND. 

Lord Baltimore (George Calvert) came to Virginia (1629), 
seeking a refuge for his Catholic brethren, who were then perse- 
cuted in England ; but finding that persons of his faith were 
harshly treated, he secured from the king a grant of land north of 
the Potomac, on the annual payment of two Indian arrows and 
one-fifth of the gold and silver which might be found. This ter- 
ritory received the name Maryland, in honor of the queen, Henri- 
etta Maria. Its charter, unlike that granted to Virginia, gave to 
all freemen the right of making the laws. All sects were to be 
tolerated, and there was to be no interference from the kingf, nor 
any English taxation. 

The first colony was founded at an Indian town near the mouth 
of the Potomac. Religious liberty obtained a home, its first in 
the wide world, at the humble village of St. Mary's. The infant 
colony flourished wonderfully. The land had already been tilled 
by the Indians and was ready for planting. Food was plenty 
and contentment reigned. Tobacco became the staple ; slaves 



42 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1634. 



were 1 
tained 



ntroduced ; and much the same manners and customs ob- 
as in Virginia. There was, for a time, serious difficulty 

with a colony of refugees from 
Virginia under Clayborne, who 
refused to submit to the new gov- 
ernment. The Puritans, coming 
in large numbers, obtained the 
majority over the Catholics. 
Two governors were elected; 
one Catholic and the other 
Protestant. Confusion ensued, 
and then civil war. Finallv 
the Catholics found themselves 
disenfranchised in the very col- 
ony they had planted. In 171 5, 
the fourth Lord Baltimore re- 
covered the government, and 
religious toleration was again 
granted. Maryland remained 
under this administration until 
the Revolution. 




LORD BALTIMORE. 



L -^=NS£>*^ 



SETTLEMENT Of PLYMOUTH COLOJMY. 

One stormy day in the fall of 1620, the Mayflower dropped 
anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod. It bore a little band of one 
hundred and two Pilgrims. They had neither charter from the 
king nor the patronage of any company. They were exiles flee- 
ing from persecution at home and seeking religious freedom in 
the New World. They had expected to settle the milder coun- 
try near the Hudson, but instead were borne to the tempestuous 
coast of Massachusetts. Before any one landed, they assembled in 
the cabin and signed a compact agreeing to submit to such "just and 
equal laws " as should be enacted for the " general good." John 
Carver was chosen governor. They sailed about for a month seek- 
ing a good location for their intended settlement. Meanwhile, Cap- 
tain Miles Standish and his soldiers, each armed with coat of mail, 
sword, and match-lock musket, explored the country by land. 



1620.] 



SETTLEMENT OF PLYMOUTH COLONY. 

■illi^ii^iMiililliffil mm 



43 




SIGNING THE COMPACT. 



The old chronicles 
narrate various inci- 
dents of their differ- 
ent excursions. One 
day they found " five 
or six people with 
a dogge, who were 
savages," and who " all ran away and whistled the dogge after 
them." Then Bradford (the future governor) was caught in an 
Indian deer-trap, to the great amusement of the party ; and after- 
ward they stumbled upon some heaps of earth, in one of which 
were baskets of Indian corn. This they carried back to the ship 
in a great kettle left among the ruins of an Indian hut. It fur- 
nished them seed for their first crop, and the owners, being after- 
ward found, were carefully paid. At another time having con- 
cluded their morning-prayers, they were preparing to breakfast, 
when a strange yell was heard and a shower of arrows fell in the 
midst of their little camp on the beach. They returned the salute 
with powder and ball, and their savage assailants fled. 

The little shallop which was used for coasting along the shore 
encountered a furious gale, and lost sail, mast, and rudder. With 
great difficulty they brought it to land. Darkness was already 
upon them, and the rain froze on their garments as they stood. 
They kindled a fire out of the wet wood on the shore, and passed 
the night as best they could. The next day was spent in cleaning 
rusty weapons, drying drenched " stuff," and reconnoitering the 
place. Every hour was precious. The winter was rapidly clos- 
ing in. The party in the Mayflower was anxiously awaiting their 
return, yet, being " y e last day of y e weeke, they prepared ther 
to keepe y e Sabbath," 



44 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1620. 




PLYMOUTH ROCK. 



On Monday, December 21, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. 
A grateful posterity has kept the day in honored remembrance, 
and " Forefathers' Rock," on which they first set foot, is still 
preserved as an object of veneration. It was probably the only 
stone large enough for the purpose of landing in all that bleak, 
sandy coast. 

The cutting blasts of winter fell upon them. Half of the men 
were sick from exposure. Yet they resolutely set at work build- 
ing rude log-cabins. At 
one time there were only 
seven well persons in the 
colony. They " carried 
out the dead through the 
snow and the cold, and 
returned to take care of 
the sick." When spring 
came, the graves they 
had dug far outnumbered 
the houses they had built. But the hearts of the survivors never 
misgave them. When the Mayflower returned to England she 
carried back not a single home-sick pilgrim. 

The summer found them with flourishing fields of barley, 
peas, and Indian corn ; fish, wild fowls, berries, and native fruits 
in abundance ; nineteen log-cabins, each with a little enclosure for 
a private garden ; a rude store-house, twenty feet square, for the 
protection of their common property ; and a platform on the hill 
crowned with five guns as a means of defence. A little brook 
ran by the humble town, and springs of clear, fresh water were 
near. That " the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly," and 
the wild wood-flowers were " very sweet," is their own record, 
and testifies to their cheerful content. 

The feeble colony met with no opposition from the Indians. 
A pestilence had nearly annihilated several tribes inhabiting that 
portion of the coast, and thus, providentially, as the Pilgrims 
devoutly believed, left a clear place for them to occupy. One 
pleasant morning they were startled by the coming of an Indian, 
who, in broken English, bade them " Welcome." He proved 
to be Samoset, a petty chief who had picked up a little of the 
language from the crews of fishing -vessels. He afterward 
brought Massasoit, the head chief of the Wampanoags. A treaty 
was made with him and faithfully observed for over half a cen- 



1622.] 



SETTLEMENT OF PLYMOUTH COLONY. 



45 




WELCOME, ENGLISHMEN. — PLYMOUTH, 1621. 



tury. In 1622, Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansett tribe, sent 
to Plymouth, as a token of defiance, a bundle of arrows tied with 
a rattlesnake's skin. The governor sent back the same skin 
stuffed with powder and ball. The superstitious savages, think- 
ing it some fatal charm, passed it in terror from hand to hand till 
it came back again to Plymouth. 

The first crop proved inadequate for the winter. A new body 
of emigrants arrived, but they were unprovided with food, and so 
only increased the privations and difficulties of the colony. Even 
at the end of three years we are told that " at night they knew 
not where to have a bit in the morning." At one time there was 
only a pint of corn in the settlement, which allowed five kernels to 
each person. Yet such was their pious content that at a social 
dinner, consisting only of clams, eaten off the lid of the same 
chest on which the compact was signed in the cabin of the May- 
flower, good Elder Brewster returned thanks to God for having 
" given them to suck the abundance of the seas and of the treas- 
ures hid in the sand." The plan first adopted of working their 
lands in common failed, as at Jamestown, and a portion was 
assigned each settler. Thrifty, God-fearing, and industrious, 
the Pilgrims steadily gained in abundance and comfort. Car- 
goes of sassafras, then much esteemed in pharmacy, furs and lum- 



46 EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. [1628. 

ber were sent to England. After a time they raised enough corn 
to sell to fishing-vessels and to barter with the Indians. 

For over eighteen years the government in church and state 
was a strict democracy — all the male inhabitants forming the 
legislature. The increase of population afterward caused it to be 
made representative, and each town sent a committee to the gen- 
eral court. The Plymouth colony remained independent till 1692, 
when it was united to that of Massachusetts Bay. 



3ETTLEJVIEJMT OF MyVS£y\CHU£ETT£ By\Y. 

The success of the Pilgrims greatly encouraged the establish- 
ment of other settlements. Large numbers of the best Puritan 
families in England were induced to emigrate. In 1628, five ship- 
loads landed at a place which they named Salem, from the Hebrew 
word meaning peace. Their circumstances were far different from 
those of the Pilgrims. It was June when they approached the 
coast. " What with pine woods and green trees by land," writes 
the old chronicler, " and yellow flames painting the sea, we were 
all desirous to see our new Paradise." They had a grant from 
the Council of New England, which had taken the place of the 
old Plymouth Company. They had a charter from the king, 
authorizing them to govern themselves. Moreover, their connec- 
tions in England were powerful. They brought tools, cattle, and 
horses. They were not, however, exempted from the hardships 
incident to a settler's life. The winter was very severe and they 
were forced to subsist on ground-nuts, shell-fish, and acorns, so 
difficult to obtain at that season of the year. One of them 
wrote : " Bread was so very scarce that sometimes I thought the 
very crumbs of my father's table would be sweet unto me. 
And, when I could have meal and water and salt boiled together, 
it was so good, who could wish better?" 

Other settlements were rapidly formed — Charlestown, Dor- 
chester, Watertown, Lynn, and Cambridge. One thousand emi- 
grants under the highly-esteemed Governor Winthrop estab- 
lished themselves at Boston — from its three hills first called 
Tri-Mountain — which became the capital of the colony. 

The government was vested in a governor chosen by the 



1630.] 



SETTLEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 



47 




FACSIMILE OF FIKST MAP ENGRAVED IN NEW ENGLAND. 



people, and a legislature elected in the same manner. None but 
freemen, however, could vote, and none but church members 
were eligible to citizen- 
ship. " Each settlement," 
says Hildreth, " at once 
assumed that township 
authority which has ever 
formed so marked a fea- 
ture in the political or- 
ganization of New Eng- 
land. The people assem- 
bled in town -meeting, 
voted taxes for local pur- 
poses, and chose three, 
five, or seven of the prin- 
cipal inhabitants, at first 
under other names, but 
early known as ' select- 
men,' who had the expen- 
diture of this money and the executive management of town affairs. 
A treasurer and a town clerk were also chosen, and a constable 
was soon added for the service of civil and criminal processes." 
Each town constituted, in fact, a small state almost complete in 
itself. 

It is a noticeable fact that what we now call Massachusetts 
grew up around two centres, separated not only by forty miles of 
wilderness, but by a great diversity of thought. Plymouth and 
the Bay were two little republics, that for sixty years maintained 
their independence. In England, the Pilgrims who settled the 
former were Separatists ; that is to say, they had left the Church 
of England and set up churches for themselves. The Puritans, 
who came to the Bay, were Non-conformists ; i. c, they simply re- 
fused to conform to certain rules and usages of the Church of Eng- 
land, but remained, as it were, members under protest. Plymouth 
was weak in men and money ; the Bay was strong from the first. 
The former was settled by plain, practical people, having only one 
university man — Elder Brewster; the latter had a superabun- 
dance of highly educated persons. In 1640, the Bay numbered 
seventy-seven clergymen ; they dominated in all political action 
and engrafted on the Puritan colony the best learning of the Old 
World. At Plymouth all voted who were elected to the right of 






4 8 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1636. 



citizenship ; at the Bay, church membership was a sine qua non, 
so that not a quarter of the adults were eligible to that trust. 
At Plymouth were found quiet, peace, and contentment ; at the 
Bay, the rush of business and the strife of parties, impelling the 
tides of life which set off to establish new centres in Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, and other colonies. 

Religious toleration was rarely seen in those days. Indeed, 
those who were themselves cruelly persecuted were often the 
most intolerant in their treatment of any who differed with them. 
The Puritans had crossed the sea to establish a Puritan 
colony, and they required everybody to attend their worship. 
A strict uniformity of belief was enforced. Religious distur- 
bances soon arose. Roger Williams, an eloquent young minister, 

had adopted the idea 
of " soul -liberty," as 
he expressed it, i. e., 
the responsibility of 
every man to his own 
conscience alone. It 




ER WILLIAMS RECEIVED BY CANONICUS. 



was a novel sentiment in those days, and was especially unsuited to 
the Puritan method of government. Williams was accordingly 
expelled from the colony. Exiled by Christians, he found a home 
with Pagans. Canonicus. a Narragansett chief, gave him land for 
a settlement, which he gratefully called Providence (1636). Mrs. 
Hutchinson, who rebelled at the restraints placed upon women, 
and claimed to have special revelations of God's will, was also 
banished, and joined the new colony. The Quakers had come 
to Boston overflowing with zeal, and even courting persecution. 



1656.] 



KING PHILIP'S WAR. 



49 



They received it in abundance. Several were hanged. Num- 
bers were flogged and expelled. These, too, found a hearty 
welcome at the Providence plantation, the exiled Williams freely 
sharing his lands with religious refugees of every class. Thus 
were laid the foundations of the State of Rhode Island. Its 
fundamental principle was its founder's favorite one of entire 
liberty of conscience. 

A union of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New 
Haven, and Connecticut, was formed in 1643, under the title of 
The United Colonies of New England. This was a famous 
league in colonial times, and was the germ of the Federal Union 
of later days. The object was a common protection against the 
Indians and the encroachments of the Dutch and French settlers. 

Massasoit, like Powhatan, was the friend of the whites. After 
Massasoit's death, his son, King Philip, as he was called, brooding 
over the constant encroachments of the settlers, the loss of game, 
and the usurpation of his favorite hunting-grounds, at last organ- 
ized a confederation of various 
tribes to drive out the intruders. 
The struggle began ere his plans 
were completed. Some Indians 
being tried and hanged for mur- 
der, Philip, in revenge, fell upon 
Swanzy, a little settlement near 
his home at Mount Hope (1675). 
Troops came, and he fled, mark- 
ing his flight by burning build- 
ings and by poles hung with the 
heads, hands, and scalps of the 
hapless whites whom he met 
on the way. All the horrors of 
Indian warfare now burst upon 
the doomed colonists of New 
England. The settlements were 
widely scattered. The Indians 
lurked in every forest and brake. 
They watched for the lonely 
settler as he opened his door 

in the morning, as he was busy with his work in the field, or 
walked along the forest path to church. The fearful war-whoop, 
the deadly tomahawk, the treacherous ambuscade, filled the col- 




KING PHILIP. 

(From an Old Print.) 



5o 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1675. 




ony with constant terror. 
In August, a company of 
eighty young men, " the very 
flower of the county of Es- 
sex," were returning from 
Deerfield with a train of 
wagons loaded with wheat, 
which they had harvested. At a little stream, ever since that day 
called Bloody Run, they stopped to pick the grapes which hung 
in profusion from the trees along the road. Suddenly amid their 
glee, the Indians leaped upon them, like tigers, from the thicket. 
Only seven or eight of the entire party escaped. While the sav- 
ages were plundering the dead, troops came to the rescue, and, 
in turn, cut down nearly one hundred of their number ere they 
could escape. 

At Hadley, the Indians surprised the people during a relig- 
ious service. Seizing their muskets at the sound of the savage 
war-whoop, the men rushed out of the meeting-house to fall into 
line. But the foe was on every side. Confused and bewildered, 
the settlers seemed about to give way, when suddenly a strange 
old man with long white beard and ancient garb appeared among 
them. Ringing out a quick, sharp word of command, he recalled 



1676.] SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 5 1 

them to their senses. Following their mysterious leader, they 
drove the enemy headlong before them. The danger passed, 
they looked around for their deliverer ; but he had disappeared 
as mysteriously as he had come. The good people believed 
that God had sent an angel to their rescue. History reveals 
the secret. It was the regicide Colonel Goffe. Fleeing from the 
vengeance of Charles II., with a price set upon his head, he had for 
years wandered about, living in mills, clefts of rocks, and forest 
caves. At last he had found an asylum with the Hadley minister. 
From his window he had seen the stealthy Indians coming down 
the hill. Fired with desire to do one more good deed for God's 
people, he rushed from his hiding-place, led them on to victory, 
and then returned to his retreat, never more to reappear. 

All the long summer the cruel strife went on. But when 
winter came, and the forest was more open and the low ground 
frozen over, a large body of the colonists attacked the Indians in 
their stronghold, in an almost inaccessible swamp in South King- 
ston. After a desperate struggle the fort was carried, and the 
wigwams filled with stores were burned to ashes. A thousand 
warriors were killed. The next year Philip was left almost alone. 
Hunted from place to place, he was tracked to the centre of a 
morass, where he was shot by one of his own people. It was 
a sad fate for a brave man, who, under other circumstances, 
would have been styled a hero and a patriot. The war had cost 
the colony six hundred men and one million dollars. Every 
eleventh house had been burned and every eleventh soldier killed. 
No help had been asked or received from England. 

The year 1692 is memorable as that of the Salem Witchcraft. 
This was a delusion which seems preposterous now, but which 
was then in accordance with the current belief of the times. It 
broke out in the family of Mr. Parish, a minister of Salem, where 
a company of girls had been in the habit of meeting with two West 
Indian slaves, to study the " black art." Suddenly they began to 
be mysteriously contorted, to bark like dogs, purr like cats, and 
scream at some unseen thing which was sticking pins in their bodies. 
They accused an old Indian servant of bewitching them. On 
being scourged, she acknowledged the crime. A fast-day was 
proclaimed. Cotton Mather, a distinguished minister of Boston, 
and a firm believer in the delusion, came to investigate the case. 
The excitement spread. Impeachments multiplied. A special 
court was formed to try the accused. The jails rapidly filled. 



52 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1692. 



Magistrates were busy. On the most foolish charges — as being 
seen flying through the air on a broom — respectable people were 
condemned to death. It was dangerous to express doubt of a 
prisoner's guilt. Fifty-five persons suffered torture and twenty 
were executed. All these might have escaped if they had con- 
fessed themselves guilty, but, with noble heroism, they chose 
death rather than a falsehood. When the people awoke to their 




THE OLD WITCH HOUSE — SCENE OF EXAMINATIONS AT SALEM. 



folly the reaction was wonderful. Judge Sewall was so deeply 
penitent that he observed a day of fasting in each year, and on 
the day of general fast rose in his place in the Old South Church 
at Boston, and in the presence of the congregation handed to the 
pulpit a written confession acknowledging his error, and praying 

" That the sin of his ignorance sorely rued, 
Might be washed away in the mingled flood 
Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood." 

The history of Maine and New Hampshire is almost identical 
with that of Massachusetts. The early settlements grew up out 
of various fishing stations along the coast. A story is told of an 
itinerant preacher, who, in his exhortations to the people of Ports- 
mouth, reminded them that as they had come thither for the pur- 
pose of free worship, they ought to be very religious. " Sir, you 
are quite mistaken," was the reply. " You think you are speak- 
ing to the people of Massachusetts Bay. Our main end is to catch 
fish." Maine was not one of the original thirteen colonies, and 
did not separate from Massachusetts till 1820. New Hampshire 
was three times given to Massachusetts, either from its own wish 
or by royal authority. In 1741 it became a royal province, and 
had its governor, who was appointed by the king. 



1635.] THE PEQUOD WAR. 53 



$ETTLEJVIE^T OF COjMJMECTICUT. 

The valley of the Connecticut — a name derived from the Indian 
word for long river — was settled from Massachusetts. Rumors of 
its rich bottom lands early attracted the attention of the pioneers 
struggling for an existence upon the barren sea-coast around Plym- 
outh and the Bay. In 1633 a company of traders from Plymouth 
sailed up the river and built a fort at Windsor. In the autumn 
°f 1635 John Steele, one of the proprietors of Cambridge, led z 
pioneer company " out west," as it was then considered, and laid, 
the foundations of Hartford. They passed the winter in miser- 
able cabins, half-buried in the snow, living precariously on con. 
purchased of the Indians. The next year the main band, with 
their pastor, Thomas Hooker, a most eloquent and estimable man, 
" the light of the western churches," came, driving their flocks 
before them, through the wilderness. For two weeks they 
traveled on foot, traversing mountains, swamps, and rivers, with 
only the compass for a guide, and little beside the milk from 
their own cows for their subsistence. Mrs. Hooker being ill, was 
borne on a litter. They established Hartford, Wethersfield and 
Windsor, known as the Connecticut colony, giving the franchise 
to all freemen. New Haven was settled by a company of Puri- 
tans direct from England. Like the colony around Massachusetts 
Bay, they allowed only church^members to vote. 

The settlers had not been a year in their new home when a 
war broke out with the Pequod Indians. Roger Williams, hear- 
ing that this tribe was likely to obtain the aid of the Narragan- 
setts, forgot all the wrongs he had received from the Massachu- 
setts people, and, at the risk of his life, went to the Indian 
council, confronted the Pequod deputies, and, after a three-days 
struggle, prevailed upon the Narragansetts to take part with the 
whites. A body of ninety Connecticut colonists was now raised 
to attack the Pequod stronghold on the Mystic River. Aftei 
spending nearly all night in prayer, at the request of the sol 
diers, they set out on their perilous expedition. On the way they 
were joined by several hundred friendly Indians. The party 
approached the fort at daybreak (June 5, 1637). The barking of 
a dog aroused the sleepy sentinel, and he shouted, " Owanux ! 
Owanux ! " (the Englishmen ! ) — but it was too late. The troops 
were already within the palisades. The Indians collected them- 



54 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1637. 



selves and made a fierce resistance ; but Captain Mason, seizing a 
firebrand, hurled it among the wigwams. The flames quickly 
swept through the encampment. The English themselves barely 
escaped. A few Indians fled to the swamp, but were hunted 
down. The tribe perished in a day. This fearful blow struck 
terror to the savages, and gave New England peace for forty 
years, until King Philip's war, of which we have spoken. " The 
infant was safe in its cradle, the laborer in the fields, the solitary 
traveler during the night-watches in the forest ; the houses 
needed no bolts, the settlements no palisades." 

The younger Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop of Massa- 
chusetts and one of the most accomplished men of his time, went 
to England, and by his personal influence and popularity obtained 
from Charles I. the most liberal charter as yet given to the 
colonies. It was a precious boon to liberty. Twenty-five years 
afterward, Governor Andros, pompously marching from Boston 
over the route where the pious Hooker had led his little flock fifty 
years before, came " glittering with scarlet and lace " into the 
assembly at Hartford, and demanded the charter. A protracted 
debate ensued. The people crowded around to take a last look at 

this guarantee of their liberties, 
when suddenly the lights were ex- 
tinguished. On being relighted, 
the charter was gone. William 
Wadsworth had seized it, escaped 
through the crowd, and hidden 
it in the hollow of a tree, famous 
ever after as the CJiartcr Oak. 
However, Andros pronounced 
the charter government at an 
end. " Finis " was written at the 
close of the minutes of their last meeting. 

The freedom of the press was now denied, 
marry had to give heavy bonds with sureties. 

in wedlock was taken from the clergy and given to the magis- 
trates. Payment of money to non-conformist ministers was for- 
bidden. Farmers were required to take out new titles to their 
land, at great expense. The rule of the governor became at last 
unendurable. When he was finally deposed, the people brought 
out the faded but now doubly-precious charter from its hiding- 
place, the general court reassembled, and the "finis" disappeared. 




THE CHARTER OAK. 



Persons about to 
The right to join 



I 



1609.] 



DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 



55 



£ETTLE/\/IEjNT OF NEW YORK. 

This was the only colony planted by the Dutch. In 1609, 
Henry Hudson, an English navigator in the service of the Dutch, 
while seeking a northwest passage to the Indies entered the 
harbor of New York. His vessel, the Half-Moon, was the first 
European ship to sail up that noble river which now bears his 
name. Strange was the sight which greeted his wondering eyes. 
" Sombre forests," says Bancroft, " shed a melancholy grandeur 
over the useless magnificence of nature, and hid in their deep 




THE HALF-MOON IN THE HUDSON. 



shades the rich soil which the sun had never warmed. No axe 
had leveled the giant progeny of the crowded groves, in which 
the fantastic forms of withered limbs that had been blasted and 
riven by lightning contrasted strangely with the verdant fresh- 
ness of a younger growth of branches. The wanton grape-vine, 
seeming by its own power to have sprung from the earth and to 
have fastened its leafy coils on the top of the tallest forest tree, 



$6 EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. [1609. 

swung in the air with every breeze like the loosened shrouds of a 
ship. Reptiles sported in stagnant pools, or crawled unharmed 
over piles of mouldering trees." Red men, too, were there : 
sometimes conciliatory, as when they flocked about in their 
canoes to barter grapes, pumpkins, and furs for beads and knives ; 
sometimes vindictive, as when they beset the little exploring boat 
and sent Hudson's long-time comrade to a grave on the beach. 

About the time that John Smith went back to England, Hud- 
son turned his prow toward Holland. His voyage had rendered 
his name immortal. Legends of the daring sailor still live among 
the old Dutch families, and when the black thunder-clouds send 
their crackling peals along the Palisades, they say, " Hendrick 
Hudson and his crew are playing nine-pins now." 

It was the golden age of Dutch commerce. Holland imme- 
diately laid claim to the country and named it " New Nether- 
land." In 1613 some huts were erected on the present site of 
New York. The year after the landing of the Pilgrims, the 
Dutch West India Company obtained a patent for the territory 
between the Delaware and the Connecticut. Rivers. To every 
one who should plant a colony of fifty persons they offered a 
tract of land sixteen miles in length, which they and their heirs 
should hold forever. These proprietors were called patroons, or 
lords of the manor. The famous anti-rent difficulties of after 
times grew out of these grants. 

To supply the requisite number of emigrants, ship-captains 
brought over many poor Germans, whose passage-money was 
paid by the patroons, whom they were in turn bound to serve for 
a given term of years. It was a profitable arrangement for all 
concerned. During the period of service the Rcdcmptioncrs, as 
they were called, gained a knowledge of the language and ways 
of the country, and were fitted to take care of themselves when 
they became independent. In that charming little volume, " New 
York Society in the Olden Time," a story is told of one of these 
settlers who, having completed his bondage of several years, 
quietly produced a bag of gold which he had brought over with 
him, and which was sufficient to purchase a farm. But, said his 
late master in surprise, " why, with all this money, did you not 
pay your passage, instead of serving as a redemptioner so long?" 
" Oh," said the cautious emigrant from the Rhine, " I did not know 
English, and I should have been cheated. Now I know all about 
the country, and I can set up for myself." Which was true phil- 



1629.] 



SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK. 



57 



osophy. These industrious settlers became respected citizens, 
and their descendants are to-day among the wealthy farmers 
along the Hudson. 

Peter Minuits came over as first governor in 1626. He 
bought the Island of Manhattan of the Indians for twenty-four 
dollars. Here was founded the city of New Amsterdam. Trade 
was opened with the Indians, and canoes pushed up every neigh- 
boring inlet to barter for otter and beaver skins. Meanwhile 
there was trouble with the Swedes on the Delaware, and the 
English on the Connecticut, both of whom had settled on lands 
claimed by the Dutch. Then, too, there was a fearful massacre 
of Indians, perpetrated by Governor Kieft, and in revenge the war- 
whoop echoed through every forest 
glen, and not a farm or " bowerie " 
was safe. The colonists, indignant at 
his cruel folly, sent the governor home, 
but he was wrecked on the coast of 
Wales and miserably perished. 

Under Governor Stuyvesant came 
better times. He arranged the Con- 
necticut boundary line ; conquered 
New Sweden, as the colony on the 
Delaware was called ; made peace 
with the Indians, and built a palisade 
across the island where now is Wall 
street. Dutch industry and thrift 
meant prosperity here as well as in 
Holland. From the first, New York 
was a cosmopolitan city. Even at 
that early day eighteen languages 
were said to be spoken. The French 
Huguenots, the Italian Waldenses, 
the Swiss Calvinists, the world-hated 
Jew, all found a home and a refuge in 
this growing colony. The island was 
mostly divided into farms. The Park was crowned with forest 
trees and used for a common pasture, where tanners obtained 
bark and boys gathered chestnuts for half a century later. 

With all Governor Stuyvesant's honesty and ability, " Head- 
strong Peter," as they called him, was inclined to be obstinate. 
He especially hated democratic institutions. The English in the 




GOVERNOR STUYVESANT. 



58 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[IGC4. 



colony looked with longing- eyes on the rights enjoyed by their 
Connecticut brethren, so that when, in 1664, an English fleet came 
to anchor in the harbor and demanded a surrender in the name of 




THE ENGLISH LANDING AT NEW YORK, IUO4. 



the Duke of York, there was secret joy in the town. The stout- 
hearted governor had been a brave soldier in his time, and he 
stumped about on his wooden leg at a terrible rate, angrily tore 
up the letter of his council making terms, and swore he would 
hold the place at every cost. But the burgomasters made him 
put the pieces together and sign the surrender. The English 
flag soon floated over the island, and the name of the colony was 
changed to New York in honor of the new proprietor. England 
was now master of the coast from Canada to Florida. 

The English governors disappointed the people by not granting 
their coveted rights. A remonstrance against being taxed with- 
out representation was burned by the hangman. So that when, 
after nine years of English authority, a Dutch fleet appeared in 
the harbor, the people went back quietly under their old rulers. 
But the next year, peace being restored between England and 
Holland, New Amsterdam became New York again. Thus ended 
the Dutch rule in the colonies. Andros, who twelve years after 
played the tyrant in New England, was the next governor. He 
managed so arbitrarily that he was called home. Under his 
successor, Dongan, there was a gleam of civil freedom. By per- 



1689.] 



SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK. 



59 



/ 






'I * 



I^SJj 



<* 



ItiChiiVaultlici L-uried 

' PETRUS STUYVESANT 

|5MeCaptarnGenerai(GovernorinChiefofAjnster(famj 
InNewNefherland now called Newark: 
And the DutchWe^ Tncf i alsIands.Die<f AD.I6> j| 
Aged gO vears. 



^ 



^&s8S3 



?«!*g 



V>AA/ 
THE TOMB OF PETER STUYVESANT. 

(From St. Mark's Church, New York.) 



^OWksS^vy 



mission of the Duke of York, he called an assembly of the repre- 
sentatives of the people. This was but transient, for two years 
after, when the Duke of York became James II., king of England, 
he forgot all his 
promises, for- 
bade legislative 
assemblies, pro- 
hibited print- 
ing-presses, 
and annexed 
the colony to 
New England. 
When, how- 
ever, Andros 
was driven from 
Boston, Nichol- 
son, his lieuten- 
ant and apt tool 
of tyranny in 
New York, fled 

at once. Captain Leisler, supported by the democracy, but bit- 
terly opposed by the aristocracy, thereupon administered affairs 
very prudently until the arrival of Governor Slaughter, who ar- 
rested him on the absurd charge of treason. Slaughter was unwil- 
ling to execute him, but Leisler's enemies, at a dinner party, made 
the governor drunk, obtained his signature, and before he became 
sober enough to repent, Leisler was no more. The people were 
greatly excited over his death, and cherished pieces of his clothing 
as precious relics. For long after, party strife ran high and bitter 
over his martyrdom. 

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Captain Kidd was 
noted as a bold and skillful shipmaster. He distinguished himself 
as a privateersman against the French in the West Indies, ana 
received one hundred and fifty pounds for protecting New York 
city from pirates, who at that time infested the ocean highways. 
Being sent out against these sea-robbers, he finally became a pirate 
himself. Returning from his guilty cruise, he boldly appeared in 
the streets of Boston, where he was captured in the midst of a prom- 
enade. He was carried to England, tried, and hung. His name 
and deeds have been woven into popular romance, and the song 
' My name is Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed," is well known. 



6o 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1664. 



He is believed to have buried his ill-gotten riches on the coast of 
Long Island or the banks of the Hudson, and these localities have 
suffered many a search from credulous persons seeking for Kidd's 
treasure. 

When New Netherland passed into the hands of the Duke of 
York, he sold the portion between the Hudson and the Delaware 
to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. This tract took the 
name of Jersey in honor of Carteret, who had been governor of 
the island of Jersey in the British Channel. The first settlement, 

which was a cluster of only four 
houses, was called Elizabethtown, 
after his wife. His portion was called 
East, and Lord Berkeley's West New 
Jersey. The colonists were led by a 
brother of the proprietor, who came 
with a hoe on his shoulder to remind 
the people of the way to fortune and 
prosperity. The Quakers, Scotch 
Presbyterians, and others persecuted for conscience sake, grad- 
ually occupied the country. Constant trouble prevailed among 
the settlers regarding the land titles, and in 1702 the proprietors 
gave up their rights, and " the Jerseys," as the colony was long 
known, became a royal province. 




SEALS OF NEW AMSTERDAM AND 
NEW YORK. 



■-^PSgg^Z^&s^*- 



£ETTLEME]NT Of PENNSYLVANIA 

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a celebrated 
English Quaker. Wishing to establish a home for the oppressed 
Friends in England, he secured from Charles II. the grant of a large 
tract west of the Delaware, in lieu of sixteen thousand pounds due 
his father by the crown, on condition of paying annually two beaver 
skins. This territory Penn wished to have called Sylvania (sylva, 
forest), as it was covered with woods ; but the king ordered it to 
be styled Pennsylvania, and although Penn offered the secretary 
twenty guineas to erase the prefix, his request was denied. Penn 
immediately sent a body of emigrants to begin the " holy experi- 
ment," and came himself the next year in the ship " Welcome." 
Right royally was he welcomed by the settlers already within the 



1682.] 



SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



6l 



..a 



boundaries of his land, for his first proclamation had preceded 
him with the spirit of a benediction. " I hope you will not be 
troubled at your chainge and the king's choice," he wrote, " for 
you are now fixt, at the mercy of no governour that comes to make 
his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own 
makeing, and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious 
people. God has furnisht me with a better resolution, and has 
given me His grace to keep it." On the beautiful banks of the 
Delaware, in 1683, he laid the foundations of Philadelphia, tht* 
" City of Brotherly Love," which 
he intended should be a " faire and 
greene country toune," with gar- 
dens around every house. It was 
in the midst of the forest, and the 
startled deer bounded past the set- 
tler who came to survey his new 
home. Yet within a year it had 
one hundred houses ; in two years 
numbered over two thousand in- 
habitants ; and in three years had 
gained more than New York in 
half a century. 

The government was most 
happily inaugurated, while the 
Philadelphia mansions were as yet 
mainly hollow trees. A legisla- 
ture appointed by the people was 
to make all the laws. Every sect 
was to be tolerated. Any freeman 
could vote and hold office who believed in God and kept the 
Lord's day. No tax could be levied but by law. Every child was 
to be taught a useful trade. It seemed to be Penn's only desire to 
make the little colony as happy and free as could be. Under a 
large spreading elm at Shackamaxon, Penn attended a council of 
the Indian chiefs. " We meet," said he, " on the broad pathway of 
good faith and good will ; no advantage shall be taken on either 
side, but all shall be openness and love. The friendship between 
you and me I will not compare to a chain ; for that the rains 
might rust, and the falling tree might break. We are the same as 
if one man's body were to be divided into two parts ; we are all 
One flesh and blood." The savages were touched by his gentle 




STATUE OF PENN IN PHILADELPHIA. 



62 EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. [1683. 

words and kindly bearing. " We will live in love with William 
Penn and his children," said they, " as long as the sun and moon 
shall shine." They kept the history of the treaty by means of 
strings of wampum, and would often count over the shells on a 
clean piece of bark and rehearse its provisions. " It was the only 
treaty never sworn to, and the only one never broken." On 
every hand the Indians waged relentless war with the colonies, 
but they never shed a drop of Quaker blood. Penn often visited 
their wigwams, shared in their sports, and talked to them of God 
and Heaven. He found even in the breast of the red man of the 
forest a response to his faithful teachings and pure example. 
They gave him the name Onas, and the highest compliment they 
could confer on any person was to say he was like Onas. 

Penn soon returned to England. Fifteen years afterward he 
came back with his family, intending to make the New World 
his home. But he could not shut out disturbance and conflict. 
The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania was uncer- 
tain. It was not settled until 1767, when two surveyors, Mason 
and Dixon, ran the line since famous as Mason and Dixon's line. 
The " Three Counties on the Delaware " became discontented. 
Penn gave them a deputy-governor and an assembly of their own. 
Delaware and Pennsylvania, however, remained under one gov- 
ernment till the Revolution. The colonists of Pennsylvania were 
unwilling to pay the rents by which Penn sought to reimburse 
himself for his heavy outlay, and, not content with the privileges 
already secured, constantly sought to weaken the authority of 
their benefactor. Penn sorrowfully returned to his native land, 
and finally died in want and obscurity. 



(SETTLEMENT Of THE C^r^OLIN/.^. 

Carolina, as we have seen, was first named in honor of a 
French monarch ; but it remained for the English to settle the 
country. A company of religious refugees from Virginia had 
already pushed through the wilderness and " squatted " near 
the mouth of Chowan River. Here they established the Albe- 
marle colony. In 1663, Charles II., who in his lavish igno- 
rance had given away half the continent, granted the vast 



1663.] SETTLEMENT OF THE CAROLINAS. 63 

territory south of Virginia to eight proprietors, chiefly his cour- 
tiers and ministers. The plan — the " grand model," as it was 
called — of the colony which they proposed to establish was 
drawn up by Lord Shaftesbury and the famous philosopher, John 
Locke. It was the wonder of the day. All the vast territory — 
embracing the present States of North and South Carolina, 
Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Florida, Missouri, and a large part of Texas and Mexico — was to 
be divided into counties, each containing four hundred and eighty 
thousand acres. Over each county were to be a landgrave and 
two caciques or barons. They were to hold one-fifth of the land, 
and the proprietors one-fifth, leaving the balance to the people. 
No one owning less than fifty acres could vote ; while tenants 
were to be merely serfs, and slaves were to be at the absolute 
will of their masters. 

The emigrants sent out by the English proprietors first sailed 
into the well-known waters where Ribaut had anchored over a 
century before, but afterward removed to the ancient groves cov- 
ered with yellow jasmine, which marked the site of the present city 
of Charleston, then only Oyster Point. The growth of the new 
colony was rapid. Thither came ship-loads of Dutch from New 
York, dissatisfied with the English rule and attracted by the 
genial climate. The French Huguenots, after the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes, flocked to the land where religious perse- 
cution was to be forever unknown. Their church was in Charles- 
ton ; and " thither on every Lord's day, gathering from their 
plantations on the banks of the Cooper, they might be seen, the 
parents with their children, making their way in light skiffs, 
through scenes so tranquil that silence was broken only by the 
rippling of oars and the hum of the flourishing village at the 
confluence of the rivers." The Huguenot settlers were a valua- 
ble acquisition to Charleston. At one time they numbered sixteen 
thousand, and added whole streets to the city. Many of them were 
from families of marked refinement in France, and their elegant 
manners, no less than their industry, charity, and morality, made 
an impress on the growing town. They brought the mulberry 
and olive from their own sunny land, and established magnificent 
plantations on the banks of the Cooper River. They also intro- 
duced many choice varieties of pears, which still bear illustrious 
Huguenot names. Their eminently honorable descendants have 
borne a proud part in the establishment of the American Repub- 



64 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1665. 



lie. Of seven presidents who were at the head of the Philadel- 
phia Congress during the Revolution, three were of Huguenot 
parentage. 










HUGUENOTS GOING TO CHURCH. 



A body of planters from 
the Barbadoes had, ere this, 
brought African slaves with 
them. Their labor proving 
very profitable, in a few years 
they were introduced to such an extent that they nearly doubled 
the whites in number. A little incident which happened in 1694 
had much to do with the early prosperity of the colony. The 
captain of a ship from Madagascar gave to Governor Smith 
a bag of seed rice, saying that it was much esteemed for food 
in Eastern countries. The governor shared it with his friends, 
and they all planted it in different soils to test its fitness for the 
American climate. It lived and thrived ; and thus was introduced 
what shortly became an important staple. 

The Great Model was an aristocratic scheme. The democrats 
of the New World, fleeing persecution and tyranny at home, 
living in log-cabins, and dressing in homespun and deer-skins, 
would none of it, and it was soon abandoned. The colonists were 
therefore allowed to have an assembly chosen by themselves, the 
governor only being appointed by the proprietors — the northern 



1729.] 



SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA. 



65 



and southern colonies, on account of their remoteness from each 
other, having each its own. There were still great difficulties 
with the proprietors about rents, taxes, and rights, untill in 1729, 
the Carolinas became a royal province. 



J3ETTLEJVIEJNT OF QEORQIA. 

Georgia was the last to be planted of the famous thirteen 
colonies. America, which was now a home for the oppressed of 
all religious faiths — Huguenots, Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers, 
and Catholics — was also to become an asylum for afflicted debt- 
ors. James Oglethorpe obtained from George II. a tract of land 
which was named Georgia in honor of the king. Oglethorpe 
himself accompanied the first body of emigrants to their new 
home. His kindly mien, like that of another Penn, won the love 
of the Indians. One of the chiefs 
gave him a buffalo's skin with the 
head and feathers of an eagle painted 
on the inside of it. " The eagle," 
said the warrior, " signifies swift- 
ness ; and the buffalo, strength. The 
English are swift as a bird to fly over 
the vast seas, and as strong as a beast 
before their enemies. The eagle's 
feathers are soft and signify love ; 
the buffalo's skin is warm and means 
protection ; therefore love and pro- 
tect our families." Another chief 
addressed him thus : " We are come 
twenty-five days journey to see you. 
When I heard you were come, and 
that you are good men, I came down 
that I might hear good things." 

In 1733 Oglethorpe laid out the city of Savannah in broad 
avenues and open squares, and here he lived for a year, in a tent 
pitched beneath four beautiful forest pines. Soon after, a com- 
pany of German Lutherans set out on foot from their homes in 
Salzburg, and walked to Frankfort, chanting hymns of deliver- 
5 




GENERAL OGLETHORPE. AGED 102. 

(From an Old Print.) 



66 



EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 



[1734. 



ance as they went. Taking ship, in due time they also reached 
the land of the refugee. Sturdy Scotch Highlanders settled at 
Darien. Hither, also, came John and Charles Wesley, full of zeal 
for the conversion of the Indians and the religious good of the 
young colony. A little later, George Whitefield stirred the 
people by his wonderful eloquence. At one time, sixty thousand 
were gathered to hear him, and his open-air meetings were often 
attended by from twenty thousand to forty thousand people. 

Georgia, as well as Carolina, bordered on Florida, and there 
were several contests between the young colonies and their 
Spanish neighbors. The South Carolinians and the Georgians 
each fruitlessly invested St. Augustine (1702 and 1740), and the 
Spaniards, in turn, attacked Charleston and Savannah (1706 and 
1742). Little, however, resulted from these spurts of national 
hatred, except to make more apparent the necessity of bringing 
Florida under the English crown. 

The laws of the Georgian colony were very irksome. The 
trustees limited the size of a man's farm, allowed no woman to 
inherit land, and forbade the importation of slaves or of rum. 
The last law cut off a large source of profit, as a valuable trade 
of lumber for rum had sprung up with the West Indies. Wearied 
by complaints, the trustees surrendered the colony to the crown, 
and Georgia became a royal province, like the other colonies. 










PENN'i. TREATY TREE. 



CHAPTER III. 

COLONIAL WJfcS. 




~o 



BILE the English had thus estab- 
lished themselves on the Atlan- 
tic coast, the settlement of New 
France had gone on apace. The 
same year that Henry Hudson 
sailed north up the river which 
now bears his name, Champlain, a 
French explorer who had already 
founded Quebec, penetrating the 
wilds of New York southward, 
discovered the beautiful lake which 
was henceforth to be called in his 
honor. While most of the English 
colonists steadily pushed back the Indians from their advancing 
settlements, making but slight efforts for their conversion or 
civilization, the French intermarried with them, mingled in their 
sports, shared their scanty fare, and, in their government of them, 
always joined kindness to firmness. They sought, not to drive 
away the natives, but to make the most of them. Their scheme 
of colonization, in fact, seemed to embrace but two objects — the 
mission work and the fur trade. Jesuit missionaries, burning 
with zeal and ardor, flocked to the banks of the St. Lawrence, 
and pushed their way into the virgin forest, dismayed by no 
storm, or hostility, or pestilence. Under the dripping trees, 
through the sodden snow, amid cruel and treacherous tribes, they 
moved with unflagging courage, asking only to baptize the poor 
red man, and ensure to his soul the joys of the upper paradise. 
Many of these indefatigable pioneers were murdered by the 
savages ; some were scalped, some burned in rosin-fire, some 
scalded with hot water ; yet, ever, as one fell out of the ranks, 



68 



COLONIAL WARS. 



[1668. 




SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN. 



another sprang forward, cross in hand, to fill his place. They crept 
along the northern lakes, and, in 1668, founded the mission of San 

Ste. Marie, the oldest European 
settlement in Michigan. Father 
Marquette floated in a birch-bark 
canoe down the Wisconsin to the 
Mississippi River. Going ashore 
one day at his hour of devotion, 
he did not return. His followers 
sought him, and found that he had 
died while at prayer, with his eyes 
fixed on the cross he had carried so 
long and so faithfully. 

La Salle, a famous French ad- 
venturer, descended the Great 
River to the Gulf, naming the country on its banks Louisiana, in 
honor of Louis XIV. of France. Before the close of the seven- 
teenth century, the French had explored the Great Lakes, the 
Fox, Maumee, Wabash, Wisconsin, and Illinois Rivers, and the 
Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf. They had 
traversed a region including what is now known as Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, the 
Canadas, and Nova Scotia. In 1688, New France had a population 
of eleven thousand. The opening of the eighteenth century found 
them still at their labor of colonization. In 1700, De Tonty built 
Fort Rosalie near the present site of Natchez. Fort Detroit 
was erected in 1701. Mobile was settled in 1702 and became the 
capital of all Louisiana. New Orleans was founded in 1718, and 
Vincennes in 1735. The French names still lingering throughout 
the Mississippi valley preserve the memories of its early settlers. 



Frequent contests broke out in Europe between England and 
France. The colonists naturally took part with their parent 
countries, and thus the flames of war were kindled in the New. 
World. From 1689 to 1763 — three-fourths of a century — the 
struggle went on. The series of quarrels are known with us as 
"King William's War" (1689-1697), "Queen Anne's War" 
(1702-1713), " King George's War" (1744-1748), and the " Old 
French and Indian War" (1754-1763). There were frequent 



1689.] 



KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 



6 9 




MARQUETTE DESCENDI 



pauses in the strife, but it was really and always a continuation 
of the same struggle ; and the issue was to decide whether the 
French or the English were to rule the continent. The Indians 
generally sided with the French. They were armed with guns 
and often led by French officers. The horrors of King Philip's 
and the Pequod wars were now renewed with tenfold intensity. 
The border settlers were in constant fear of the tomahawk. 
" Children, as they gambolled on the beach ; reapers, as they 
gathered the harvest ; mowers, as they rested from using the 
scythe ; mothers, as they busied themselves about the household, 
were victims to an enemy who disappeared the moment a blow 
was struck, and who was ever present when a garrison or a 
family ceased its vigilance." Every village had its block or gar- 
rison house, solidly constructed, and surrounded with a palisade 
of logs ; the upper story sometimes projected beyond the lower, 
and in it were cut loop-holes for firing upon the invader. 
Thither the inhabitants fled for shelter at any alarm. 

One June evening in 1689, ten squaws applied for lodging — 
two at each of the five garrisoned houses — in Dover, N. H. So 
secure were the inhabitants in the good faith of the Indians, that 
every family but one not only granted the request, but also 
showed them how to unfasten the bolts and bars of the doors and 
gates, in case they should desire to go out during the night. 



7o 



COLONIAL WARS. 



[1690. 



Mesandowit, one of the chiefs, was entertained at Major Wal- 
dron's garrison, as he had often been before, where they chatted 
pleasantly together, and the family retired to rest in unsuspecting 
confidence. When all was quiet, the squaws opened the gates 
and gave a concerted signal to the concealed Indians without. 
Major Waldron, an old man of eighty years, awakened by the 
noise, jumped from his bed and fought valiantly with his sword, 
but was stunned by a blow from a tomahawk, and forced into an 
arm-chair, which was mounted on the long table where he had 
supped with his betrayer. " Who shall judge Indians now?" the 
savages derisively asked, as they danced about their veteran cap- 
tive. Having forced the inmates of the house to prepare food 
for them, they regaled themselves, and then, wiping their knives, 
each " crossed out his account," as they mockingly said, upon the 
Major's body. Horribly mutilated and faint with the loss of 
blood, he was falling from the table, when one of them held his 
own sword under him and thus put an end to his misery. The 
family were all killed or taken prisoners, and the house was 
fired. The same fate befell the next dwelling and its inmates. 
The third house was saved by the barking of a dog, which 
aroused the dwellers in time to protect themselves. At Mr. 
Coffin's, the savages found a bag of money, and amused them- 
selves by making the master of the house throw it on the floor in 
handfuls, while they scrambled after it. They then took him to 
the house of his son, who had refused to admit the squaws the 
night before, and, summoning the younger Coffin to surrender, 

threatened to kill his father be- 
fore his eyes if he refused. Both 
of these families were confined in 
a deserted house for safe keep- 
ing until the savages were ready 
to take them on their march, but, 
while their captors were busy in 
plundering, they happily man- 
aged to escape. 

A war -party of French and 
Indians coming down from Can- 
ada on their snow-shoes in the depth of winter (1690), attacked 
Schenectady. They stealthily dispersed through the town, and 
the inhabitants were only aroused from sleep as the brutal foe 
burst into their houses. Men, women, and children were 




■ : ^^^ -^M^>' 



FORTIFIED HOUSE. 



1697.] 



KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 



71 



dragged from their beds and massacred. The few who escaped 
fled half-naked through the blinding snow to Albany. 




THE INDIAN ATTACK ON SCHENECTADY. 



In March, 1697, the Indians made a descent upon Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, where they murdered and captured about forty 
persons, and burned several houses. One Mr. Dustin was work- 
ing in his field. He hastened to his home, and bidding his seven 
children run with all speed to a neighboring garrison, seized his 
gun, mounted his horse, and set out after them. He had intended 
to take one before him on his horse, and protect the rest as best he 
might ; but when he overtook them, each one seemed so precious 
he could make no choice, and he determined that they should live 
or die together. Happily, he succeeded in keeping the Indians at 
bay until a place of safety was reached. He had left his wife ill 
in bed with an infant child, knowing that any effort to save her 
would only ensure death to them all. She, with the nurse and 
child, were dragged away in the train of captives. The babe of a 
week was soon disposed of in Indian fashion, and, as the strength 
of other prisoners failed, they were scalped and left by the road- 
side. Mrs. Dustin and nurse kept on the march for a hundred 
and fifty miles, when, learning that the captives were to be tor- 
tured to death after their destination was reached, she resolved 



72 



COLONIAL WARS. 



[1704. 



upon a desperate effort to escape. In the dead of night she arose 
with her nurse and an English boy who, having long been a 
prisoner, had learned how to produce death with one blow of 
the tomahawk. Taking a weapon, she killed ten of the sleep- 
ing Indians, only one wounded squaw escaping. Bringing 
away the scalps on her arm to prove her wonderful story, she 
hastened with her companions to the river bank, unloosed a canoe, 
and was ere long restored to her astonished family. 

On the last night of February, 1704, while the snow was four 
feet deep, a party of about three hundred and fifty French and 
Indians reached a pine forest near Deerfield, Massachusetts. 
Skulking about till the unfaithful sentinels deserted the morning 
watch, they rushed upon the defenceless slumberers, who awoke 
from their dreams to death or captivity. Leaving behind the 
blazing village with forty-seven dead bodies to be consumed amid 




MRS. DUSTIN DISPOSING OF HER CAPTORS. 



the wreck, they started back with their train of one hundred and 
twelve captives. The horrors of that winter march through the 
wilderness can never be told. The groan of helpless exhaustion, 
or the wail of suffering childhood, was instantly stilled by the piti- 
less tomahawk. Mrs. Williams, the feeble wife of the minister, 
had remembered her Bible in the midst of surprise, and comforted 
herself with its promises, till, her strength failing, she commended 
her five captive children to God and bent to the savage blow of 
the war-axe. One of her daughters grew up in captivity, em- 



OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



73 




74 COLONIAL WARS. [1750. 

braced the Catholic faith, and became the wife of a chief. Years 
after, dressed in Indian costume and accompanied by her warrior 
husband, she visited her friends in Deerfield. The whole village 
joined in a fast for her deliverance, and every persuasion was 
used to induce her to abandon her forest life ; but her heart clung 
fondly to her dusky friends and her own Indian children, and she 
went back to the fires of her wigwam, and died a faithful Mo- 
hawk. 

Such scenes of horror inspired the colonists with intense 
hatred toward the Indians and their French allies. A bounty as 
high as fifty pounds was offered for every Indian scalp, and expedi- 
tions were sent against the French strongholds. Two disastrous 
attempts were made to invade Canada ; Port Royal was captured 
and became a British station under the name of Annapolis ; and, 
finally, Louisburg was taken. This had been called the " Gib- 
raltar of America," and its fortifications cost five million dollars. 
It quickly fell, however, before the rude attacks of General Pep- 
perell's army of four thousand undisciplined farmers and fishermen. 
The last words of Whitefield, then in Boston, to the little army as 
it set sail, had been, " Nothing is to be despaired of when Christ is 
the leader." When the army came inside the city and beheld the 
almost impregnable fortifications captured so easily, they were 
dismayed at the very magnitude of their triumph. It seemed to 
those sturdy Puritans as if God indeed were on their side, and by 
Him alone had they won the day. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century the French had sixty 
fortified posts guarding the line of their possessions from Quebec 
to New Orleans. They were determined to hold all west of 
the Alleghanies, and to make of New France a mighty empire 
watered by the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. 
Every fountain which bubbled on the west side of the Alle- 
ghanies was claimed as being within the French Empire. But 
" while De Bienville was burying plates of lead engraved with 
the arms of France, the ploughs and axes of Virginia woodsmen 
were enforcing a surer title." The final conflict was at hand. 
The English settlers, pushing westward from the Atlantic, and 
the French fur-traders and soldiers coming down from the north, 
began to meet along the Ohio river. The French would admit 
no intruders. Surveyors were driven back. A post on the 
Monongahcla was destroyed. As there was just now a lull in na- 
tional hostilities on account of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), 



1753.] 



OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



75 



George Washington, a promising young man of twenty-one, was 
sent by Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, to demand 
an explanation from the French. Washington set out on his peril- 




AN INCIDENT OF WASHINGTON S RETURN. 



ous journev the same day on which he received his credentials. 
He found St. Pierre, the French commandant at Fort le Bceuf 
very polite but very firm. It was clear that France was deter- 
mined to hold the territory explored by the heroic La Salle and 
Marquette. The shore in front of the fort was even then lined 
with canoes ready for an intended expedition down the river. 
Washington's return through the wilderness, a distance of four 
nundred miles, was full of peril. The streams were swollen. The 
snow was falling, and freezing as it fell. The horses gave out, and 
he was forced to proceed on foot. With only one companion he 
quitted the usual path, and, with the compass as his guide, struck 
boldly out through the forest. An Indian, lying in wait, fired at 
him only a few paces off, but missing, was captured. Attempting 
to cross the Alleghany on a rude raft, they were caught in the 
trembling ice. Washington thrust out his pole to check the 
speed, but was jerked into the foaming water. Swimming to an 
island, he barely saved his life. Fortunately, in the morning the 
river \vas frozen over, and he escaped on the ice. He at last 
reached home unharmed, and reported St. Pierre's avowed de- 



7 6 



COLONIAL WARS. 



[1754. 



termination to abide by the orders under which he declared him- 
self. 

The next spring, a regiment of Virginia troops under Colonel 
Frye, Washington being second in command, was sent to occupy 
the fork of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers. Learning 
that the French had anticipated them and already erected a fort 
called Du Quesne at that point, Washington hastened forward to 
reconnoitre. Jumonville, who was hiding among the rocks with 
a detachment of French troops waiting an opportunity to attack 
him, was himself surprised and slain. Colonel Frye dying soon 
after, Washington assumed command, and collected' his forces at 
the Great Meadows, behind a rude stockade, which was aptly 
named Fort Necessity. Here he was attacked by a large body 
of French and Indians, and after a severe conflict was compelled 
to capitulate. 

The contest for the possession of the continent was now 
evidently at hand. The crisis was imminent. A convention of 
commissioners from all the colonies north of the Potomac was in 
session at Albany to concert measures of defence. A union of the 
colonies seemed absolutely necessary. 

Benjamin Franklin now came to the front. He was well 
known as the author of " Poor Richard's Almanac," which he 

had published for upwards of twenty 
years, and which had attained great 
popularity in Europe as well as 
America. Risen from a poor boy, 
his industry and native talent had 
already procured for him consider- 
able fortune, and he had just begun 
those experiments in electricity which 
were afterwards to render his name 
immortal. To this philosopher and 
statesman the convention at Albany 
deputed the task of drawing up a 
plan for the proposed confederation. 
There was to be a governor-general 
appointed by the king, and a grand 
council elected by the colonial assemblies. After much discus- 
sion the scheme was adopted, but, curiously enough, was rejected 
by the king because it gave too much power to the people ; and 
by the people, as giving too much power to the crown. 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



1755.] 



OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



77 



The following year, an expedition of English and colonial 
troops set out under General Braddock, Washington acting as 
aide-de-camp, against Fort Du Quesne. As the army toiled 
through the wilderness, one hundred axemen laboriously hewed 
a path before it, while the gloom of the forest hemmed it in on 
every side. The general was a regular British officer, proud and 
conceited. " The Indians," said he, " may frighten continental 
troops, but they can make no impression on the king's regulars ! " 






0JMI 




Washington warned him 
of the dangers of savage 
warfare, but his sugges- 
tions were received with 
contempt. The column 
came within ten miles of 
the fort, marching along 
the Monongahela in reg- 
ular array, drums beating and colors flying. Suddenly, in as- 
cending a little slope, with a deep ravine and thick underbrush 
jn either hand, they encountered the Indians lying in ambush. 
The terrible war-whoop resounded on every side. The British 
regulars huddled together, and, frightened, fired by platoons, at 



WASHINGTON AT BRADDOCK S DEFEAT. 



78 COLONIAL WARS. [1755 

random, against rocks and trees. The Virginia troops alone 
sprang into the forest and fought the savages in Indian style. 
Washington seemed everywhere present. An Indian chief with 
his braves especially singled him out. Four balls passed through 
his clothes, and two horses were shot under him. Braddock was 
mortally wounded and borne from the field. At last, when the 
continental troops were nearly all killed, the regulars turned and 
fled disgracefully, abandoning everything to the foe. Washington 
covered their flight and saved the wreck of the army from pursuit. 
While this disgrace befell the English arms on the west, far 
in the north they were being tarnished by an act of heartless 
cruelty. A bcdy of troops sent out against Acadia (Nova Scotia" 1 
easily captured the petty forts on the Bay of Fundy. The 
Acadians, a rural, simple-minded people, wished to be left to till 
their farms in peace. They gladly gave up their arms and 
promised to remain neutral. Refusing, however, to take the oath 
of allegiance to King George II., their houses were fired and 
they driven on board ship at the point of the bayonet. In the 
confusion of a forced embarkation, wives were separated from 
husbands and children from parents, never again in this world to 
be reunited. Seven thousand of these helpless people were dis- 
tributed through the colonies from Maine to Georgia. 

" Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the North-east 
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city, 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern Savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters 
Seizes the hills in his hands and drags them down to the ocean, 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth. 
Friends they sought and homes ; and many, despairing, heart-broken, 
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside." 

For years the colonial newspapers contained advertisements 
of these scattered exiles, seeking reunion with their lost ones. 
That they might not wander back to their old home, it was utterl] 
desolated. The humble household relics, dear to their simple 
hearts, perished in the flames. Cattle, sheep, and horse< were 
seized as spoils by their cruel conquerors. " There was none left 
round the ashes of the cottages of the Acadians but the faithful 
watch-dog, vainly seeking the hands that fed him. Thickets of 
forest trees choked their orchards; the ocean broke over their 
neglected dikes and desolated their meadows." Such was ;r 



1756.] OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 79 

fate of the simple Acadian peasants, about which Longfellow has 
woven his sweet and imperishable story of Evangeline. 

About the same time as Braddock's defeat, a force under 
William Johnson was sent against the fort at Crown Point. He 
met the French under General Dieskau near the head of Lake 
George. After a hot engagement, the French regulars were 
defeated by the backwoods riflemen and their gallant com- 
mander severely wounded. In the pursuit, Dieskau was found 
by a soldier leaning against a stump. As he was fumbling for 
his watch with which to propitiate his captor, the soldier, think- 
ing him to be searching for his pistol, shot him. The refugees 
from the battle fell into an ambuscade of some New York and New 
Hampshire rangers and were utterly routed. This memorable 
conflict, says Parkman, has cast its dark associations over one of 
the most beautiful spots in America. Near the scene of the 
evening fight, a pool, half overgrown by weeds and water-lilies, 
and darkened by the surrounding forest, is pointed out to the 
tourist, and he is told that beneath its stagnant waters lie the 
bones of three hundred Frenchmen, deep buried in mud and 
slime. Johnson, however, gained nothing by his victory, but 
loitered away the autumn in building Fort William Henry. 

Two years of disaster followed. In 1756, the French, under 
Montcalm, captured Fort Oswego with its valuable stores. The 
missionaries planted a cross on the spot, labeled, " This is the 
banner of victory ;" and by its side was placed a pillar bearing 
the arms of France and the inscription, " Bring lilies with full 
hands." 

The following year Fort William Henry was forced to capit- 
ulate. The English were guaranteed a safe escort to Fort Ed- 
ward. They had scarcely left the fort, however, when the Indians 
fell upon them to plunder and slaughter. In vain did the French 
officers peril their lives to save their captives from the lawless 
tomahawk. " Kill me," cried Montcalm, in desperation, " but 
spare the English, who are under my protection." But the In- 
dian fury was implacable, and the march of the prisoners to Fort 
Edward became a flight for life. 

With 1758 dawned a brighter day. William Pitt, the warm 
friend of the colonies, was now Prime Minister of England. An 
army of fifty thousand men was raised, twenty-two thousand 
British regulars and twenty-eight thousand colonial troops. This 
was equal to half the entire population of New France. Fort Du* 



8o 



COLONIAL WARS. 



[1758. 



Quesne was captured, and as the English flag floated in triumph 
over the ramparts, this gateway to the West received the name 
of Pittsburg. The success was mainly due to the exertions of 
Washington. On his return he was elected to the House of 
Burgesses. As he took his seat, the Speaker, in the name of Vir- 
ginia, publicly returned thanks to him for his services to his 
country. Washington, taken by surprise, rose to reply. Blush- 
ing and trembling, he found himself unable to utter a word. 
" Sit down, Mr. Washington," interposed the Speaker, with a 
smile of regard ; " your modesty equals your valor, and that sur- 
passes the power of any language I possess." 

Louisburg, which had been given up to the French by treaty, 
was retaken during this campaign. General Abercrombie, how- 
ever, though he had the largest 
army yet raised in the provinces 
— fifteen thousand men — was dis- 
astrously driven back from before 
Fort Ticonderoga. The wanderer 
in Westminster Abbey to-day finds 
the memory of Lord Howe, who 
fell in this repulse, perpetuated by 
a tablet erected in his honor by the 
Assembly of Massachusetts. 

The next campaign (1759) was 
destined to be decisive. Montcalm 
had received no reinforcements 
from home ; Canada was impover- 
ished and food was scarce, so that 
even the garrison in Quebec had 
daily rations of but half a pound 
of bread, and the inhabitants were 
forced to be content with two 
ounces. Forts Niagara, Crown 
Point, and Ticonderoga, feebly defended by the French, were 
soon taken. Meanwhile General Wolfe, sailing up the St. Law- 
rence, struck a more vital blow. With a formidable fleet and 
eight thousand men, he laid siege to Quebec. The citadel, 
however, far above the reach of their cannon, and the craggy 
bluff, bristling with guns, for a time repulsed every effort. At 
length he discovered a narrow path leading up the steep preci- 
pice. Here he determined to land his troops, ascend to the 




1759.] 



OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



Si 



plain above, and compel Montcalm to come out of his intrench, 
ments and give battle. Sailing- several miles up the river, he dis- 




QUEBEC IN EARLY TIMES. 



embarked his men. That clear, starry night, as they dropped 
down with the tide in their boats, Wolfr, who was just recover- 
ing from a severe illness, softly repeated the stanzas of a new 
poem which he had lately received from England. Like a mourn- 
ful prophecy, above the gentle rippling of the waters, floated ths 
strangely significant words from the lips of the doomed hero : 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour : 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."— Gray's Elegy. 

" Gentlemen," said he, as he closed the recital, " I would rather 
be the author of that poem than to have the glory of beating the 
French to-morrow." 

Having reached the landing-place, his men, clambering up the 
steep cliff, quickly dispersed the guard, and at day-break he stood 
with his entire army drawn up in order of battle on the Plains of 
Abraham. Montcalm, astonished at the audacity of the attempt, 
could scarcely believe it possible. When convinced of its truth 
he at once made an impetuous attack. Wolfe's veterans held 
their fire until the French were close at hand, then poured upon 
6 



82 COLONIAL WARS. [1759. 

them rapid, steady volleys. The enemy wavered. Wolfe, placing 
himself at the head, now ordered a bayonet charge. Already 
twice wounded, he still pushed forward. A third ball struck him. 
He was carried to the rear. " They run ! They run !" exclaimed 
the officer on whom he leaned. " Who run?" he faintly gasped. 
" The French," was the reply. " Now God be praised, I die 
happy," murmured the expiring hero. Montcalm, too, was 
fatally wounded as he was vainly trying to rally the fugitives. 
On being told by the surgeon that he could not live more than 
twelve hours, he answered, " So much the better. I shall not see 
the surrender of Quebec." 

One knows not which of these two heroes to admire the more. 
Posterity has honored both alike. A monument inscribed Wolfe 
AND Montcalm stands to their memory in the Governor's Garden 
at Quebec. The surrender of the city quickly followed the defeat 
of its army. The next year the fleur-de-lis was lowered on the 
flagstaff of Montreal, and the cross of St. George took its place. 
Peace was made at Paris, 1763. France gave up all the country 
vest of the Mississippi to Spain, who, in turn, ceded Florida to 
England. The British flag now waved over the continent from 
the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic on the east to 
the " Great River" on the west. The French had lost their foot- 
hold in the New World forever. 

The English, however, were not left in quiet possession of 
their vast inheritance. The Indian tribes of the West soon 
became restive under their new and harsher masters. Pontiac, 
head of the Ottawas, an able, cunning, and ambitious chieftain, 
organized a wide-spread conspiracy for the simultaneous destruc- 
tion of the British garrisons. All the Indian shrewdness was ex- 
ercised in accomplishing this design. At Maumee, a squaw lured 
forth the commander by imploring aid for an Indian woman dying 
outside the fort. Once without, he was at the mercy of the am- 
bushed savages. At Mackinaw, hundreds of Indians had gathered. 
Commencing a game of ball, one party drove the other, as if by 
accident, toward the fort. The soldiers were attracted to watch 
the game. At length the ball was thrown over the pickets, and 
the Indians jumping after it, began the terrible butchery. The 
commander, Major Henry, writing in his room, heard the war- 
cry and the shrieks of the victims, and rushing to his window 
beheld the savage work of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. 
Amid untold perils he himself escaped. At Detroit, the plot was 



1760-3.] 



OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 



83 



betrayed, it is said, by a squaw who was friendly to Major Glad- 
win, the English commander, and when the chiefs were admitted 
to their proposed council for " brightening the chain of friend- 
ship," they found themselves surrounded by an armed garrison. 
Pontiac was allowed to escape. Two days after, he commenced 
a siege which lasted several months. Eight forts were thus cap- 
tured. Thousands of settlers along the borders fled to escape the 
scalping-knife. Finally, the Indian confederacy was broken up, 
and Pontiac, fleeing westward, was assassinated while endeavor- 
ing to unite his dusky allies in another attempt to recover th^r 
ancient hunting-grounds. 

The contest which had given America to England really con- 
ferred it upon the colonists. From the issue of the old French 
and Indian war, date the thought of independence and the ability/ 
to achieve it. A struggle against a common foe had knit the scat- 
tered colonists together. Sectional jealousies had been measur- 
ably allayed. The colonies had come to know their own strength. 
The emergency had forced them to. think and act independently 
of the mother country, to raise men and money, and to use them 
as they pleased. Minds work fast in hours of peril, and demo- 
cratic ideas had taken deep root in these troublesome times. 
Colonial and regular officers had belonged to the same army ; 
and although, while on parade, the British affected to ridicule the 
awkward provincial, he often owed all his laurels, and sometimes 
even his safety, on the field of battle, to the prudence and valor or 
his despised companion. Washington, Gates, Montgomery, Stark, 
Arnold, Rogers, Morgan, Putnam, and a score of others, had been 
in training during these years, and had learned how to meet evdi 
British regulars when the time came. 




THE GRAVE OF BKADDOCK. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COLONIAL LIFE. 




HE thirteen colonies now (1774*) 
numbered about two million 
white inhabitants and five 
hundred thousand negroes — 
mostly slaves. They were 
mainly scattered along the 
sea-coast and the great riv- 
ers, with occasional groups of 
settlements pushed into the 
backwoods beyond. Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island, and 
Connecticut had charter gov- 
ernments. Maryland and 
Pennsylvania (with Delaware) 
were proprietary — that is, their proprietors governed the.m. 
Georgia, Virginia, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and 
the Carolinas were directly subject to the crown. Boston and 
Philadelphia were the principal cities, each having not far from 
twenty thousand inhabitants. New York contained a population 
of about twelve thousand, the houses not yet being numbered. 
Charleston had about eighteen thousand. Baltimore and Lan- 
caster (Pennsylvania) had each about six thousand. Agricul- 
ture was the main employment of the people. Manufactures, 
however, even at this early period, received much attention 
at the North. Hats, paper, shoes, household furniture, farming 
utensils, and the coarser kinds of cutlery were made to some 
extent. In an advertisement of 1769, we read: "The Bell 
Cart will go through Boston before the end of next month 
to collect rags for the Paper Mill at Milton, when all people that 
will encourage the Paper Manufactory may dispose of them." 
Cloth- weaving had been introduced, although most thrifty 
people wove their own, and every frugal housewife expected 



COMMERCE AND COINAGE. 85 

to dress her family in homespun. In 1753, the Society for 
Promoting Industry among the Poor, at its anniversary, ex- 
hibited, on Boston Common, three hundred young spinsters, 
each with her wheel ; and a weaver, working at his loom, was 
carried through the streets on men's shoulders. Commerce 
had steadily increased — principally, however, as coast trade, in 
consequence of the oppressive laws of Great Britain. The daring 
fishermen of New England already pushed their whaling crafts 
far into the icy regions of the north. At the time of the Revolu- 
tion the exports of the colonies were about four million pounds 
sterling, and the imports three and a half millions ; the exports, 
per capita, being in 1769 nearly equal to those of 1869, and the 
imports over one-half as great. Money was scarce. Trade was 
by barter — a coat for a cow, or a barrel of sugar for a pile of 
boards. In 1635, bullets were given instead of farthings — the law 
not allowing over twelve in one payment. Massachusetts was 
the only colony to coin money. A mint was set up in 1652. For 
thirty years all the coins bore the 

same date. They are known as the Stf\W^\ X?W(§^\ 
pine-tree shillings, sixpences, etc. Mfa*!£&^\ ^§Pfefc?A 



pine-tree shillings, sixpences, etc. 

The following curious anecdote is /^^~€&^\f^l^r7T7 %?\ 



told concerning this coinage: -Sir X^^^/xh^d^! 
Thomas Temple, brother of Sir X^^ 
William Temple, resided several 
years in New England during the 

commonwealth. After the Restoration, when he returned to 
England, the king sent for him, and discoursed with him on the 
state of affairs in Massachusetts, and discovered great warmth 
against that colony. Among other things, he said they had in- 
vaded his prerogative by coining money. Sir Thomas, who was 
a real friend to the colony, told his Majesty that the colonists 
had but little acquaintance with law, and that they thought it no 
crime to make money for their own use. In the course of the 
conversation, Sir Thomas took some of the money out of his 
pocket, and presented it to the king. On one side of the coin 
was a pine-tree, of that kind which is thick and bushy at the top. 
Charles asked what tree that was. Sir Thomas informed him 
it was the royal oak which preserved his Majesty's life. This ac- 
count of the matter brought the king into good humor, and dis- 
posed him to hear what Sir Thomas had to say in their favor, 
calling them ' a parcel of honest dogs.' " 



86 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



The first printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639. The 
first book printed was the " Freeman's Oath," the second, an 
almanac, and the third a psalm-book. Most of the books of this 
day were collections of sermons. The first permanent newspaper. 
The Boston News Letter, was published in 1704. In 1750 there 
were only seven newspapers. The Federal Orrery, the first daily 
paper, was not issued till 1792. The first circulating library in 
America was established under Franklin's auspices at Philadel- 
phia in 1732. There was a public library in New York, from 
which books were loaned at four and a half pence per week. In 
1754, the Society Library was founded. Eleven years later there 
was a circulating library in Boston of twelve hundred volumes. 
As yet very few books had been printed here. Scarcely any 
American work was read in Europe. There was, however, a 
growing taste for literature and art. Jonathan Edwards's meta- 
physical writings and Franklin's philosophical treatises had 
excited much attention even in the Old World. West and 
Copley had already achieved a reputation as artists of ability and 
skill. 

The usual mode of travel was on foot or horseback, the roads 
being poor, and as yet few bridges across the rivers. Chaises 
and gigs, however, were in use, with their high wheels, and bodies 
hung low on wooden springs. People along the coast journeyed 
largely by means of sloops navigated by a man and a boy. The 
trip from New York to Philadelphia occupied three days if the 
wind was fair. There was a wagon running bi-weekly from New 

York across New 
Jersey. Conveyan- 
ces were put on in 
1766, which made 
the unprecedented 
time of two days 
from New York to 
Philadelphia. They 
were, therefore, 
route was between 




THE OLD STAGE COACH. 



termed " flying machines." The first stage 
Providence and Boston, taking two days for the trip. 

A post-office system had been effected by the combination 
of the colonies, which united the whole country. The rate of 
postage was fourpence for each letter if carried less than sixty 
miles, sixpence between sixty and a hundred and sixty miles, 



EDUCATION IN THE COLONIES. 87 

and twopence for every hundred miles thereafter. A mail was 
started in 1672, between New York and Boston, by way of Hart- 
ford. By contract the round trip was to be made monthly. 
Benjamin Franklin was one of the early postmasters -general. 
He made a grand tour of the country in his chaise, perfecting 
and maturing the plan. His daughter Sally accompanied him, 
riding sometimes by his side in the chaise, and sometimes on 
the extra horse which he had with him. It took five months 
to make the rounds which could now be performed in as many 
days. 

Education early made great progress. Under the eaves of the 
church the Puritans always built a school-house. The records of 
Boston contain the following: "The 13th of ye 2nd month, 1635. 
It was then generally agreed upon yt our brother Philemon Pur- 
mount shall be intreated to become schoolmaster for ye teaching 
and nourturing of all children with us." When the city was but 
six years old, four hundred pounds were appropriated to the semi- 
nary at Cambridge, now known as Harvard University. Some 
years after, each family gave a peck of corn or a shilling in cash for 
its support. In 1700, ten ministers, having previously so agreed, 
brought together a number of books, each saying as he laid down 
his gift, " I give these books for founding a college in Connecticut." 
This was the beginning of Yale College. It was first established 
at Saybrook, but in 1716 was removed to New Haven. It was 
named from Governor Yale, who befriended it most generously. 
Earlier than this, common schools had been provided, not, how- 
ever, free, but supported by voluntary offerings. In 1647, Massa- 
chusetts made the support of schools compulsory and education 
universal and free. We read that, in 1665, every town had a 
free school, and, if it contained over one hundred families, a gram- 
mar school. In Connecticut every town that did not keep a school 
for three months in the year was liable to a fine. 

The Middle Colonies had already their colleges and many 
humbler schools scattered through the towns. In the Dutch 
period it was usual for the schoolmaster, in order to increase 
his emoluments, to act as town-clerk, sexton, and chorister ; to 
ring the bell, dig graves, etc. ; somewhat after the custom still 
preserved in the country schools of Germany. Licenses were 
granted to schoolmasters for exclusive privileges. 

The following, given by an English governor, Lovelace, for Al- 
bany, then a mere rude hamlet, in 1670, is still preserved : Where- 



88 COLONIAL LIFE. 

as, Jan Jeurians Beecker had a Graunt to keep y e Dutch school ai 
Albany for y e teaching of youth to read & to wryte y e which 
was allowed of and confirmed to him by my predecessor Coll. 
Richard Nicolls Notwithstanding which severall others not sa 
capable do undertake y e like some perticular tymes & seasons of 
y e yeare when they have no other Imployment, where by y e schol- 
lars removing from one Schoole to another do not onely give q 
great discouragement to y e maister who makes it his businesse all 
y e yeare but also are hindred & become y e more backwards in 
there learning ffor y e reasons aforesaid I have thought fitt that y e 
said Jan Jeurians Beecker who is esteemed very capable that way 
shall be y e allowed schoolmaster for y e instructing of y c youth at 
Albany & partes adjacent he following y e said Imployment Con- 
stantly & diligently & that no other be admitted to interrupt him 
It being to be presumed that y e said Beecker for y e youth & 
Jacob Joosten who is allowed of for y e teaching of y e younger 
children are sufficient for that place. 

Given under my hand at fifort James in New-Yorke this 16th 
day of May 1670. 

In the English period some of the New York schools were 
kept by Dutch masters, who taught English as an accomplish- 
ment. In 1702, an act was passed for the " Encouragement of a 
Grammar Free School in the City of New York." Kings (now 
Columbia) College, was chartered in 1754. It is a noticeable fact 
that the astronomical instrument known as the Orrery, invented 
by Dr. Rittenhouse in 1768, is still preserved in Princeton College. 
No European institution had its equal. At Lewiston, Delaware, 
is said to have been established the first girls' school in the col- 
onies. The first school in Pennsylvania was started about 1683, 
where "reading, writing, and casting accounts" were taught, for 
eight English shillings per annum. 

The Southern Colonies met with great difficulties in their efforts 
to establish schools. Though Virginia boasts of the second oldest 
college in the Union, yet her English governors bitterly opposed 
the progress of education. Governor Berkeley, of whose haughty 
spirit we have already heard, said, " I thank God there are no free 
schools nor printing-presses here, and I hope we shall not have 
them these hundred years." The restrictions upon the press were 
so great that no newspaper was published in Virginia until 1736, 
and that was controlled by the government. Free schools wen? 



NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



8 9 



established in Maryland in 1696, and a free school in Charleston, 
South Carolina, in 171 2. Private schools were early established 
by the colonists in every 
neighborhood. The rich- 
er planters commonly sent 
their sons to England to 
be educated. 

At the opening of the 
Revolution there were nine 
colleges in the colonies 
Harvard, founded 1636 
William and Mary, 1693 
Yale, 1700; Princeton, 
1746; University of Penn- 
sylvania, 1749; Columbia, 
1754; Brown University, 
1764; Dartmouth, 1769; 
Rutgers, 1770. There was 
no law or theological 

school, although a medical school had been founded in Philadel- 
phia 1762, and one in New York 1769. 




EARLY PRINTING-PRESS. 



NEW EjMQLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

The New England character was marked by severe integrity. 
Conduct was shaped by a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. 
Private morals were carefully watched by the authorities in 
church and state. In the earliest times the ministers had almost 
entire control, and a church reproof was considered the heaviest 
disgrace. But something further was soon found necessary for 
less tender consciences and more flagrant offenders. A man was 
whipped for shooting fowl on Sunday. The swearer was made 
to meditate over his sin, standing in a public place with his 
tongue in a cleft stick ; sometimes he was fined twelve pence, or 
set in the stocks, or imprisoned, " according to the nature and 
quality of the person." In exaggerated offences, the unruly 
member was bored through with a hot iron. Minor transgres- 
sions of the tongue were not winked at, and the unhappy house- 



90 



COLONIAL LIFE. 




A SCOLD GAGGED. 



wife, whose temper got the better of her wisdom, had sorry 
leisure for repentance. " Scolds," says Josselyn, writing of the 

old " Body of Laws of 1646," 
" they gag and set them at 
their doors for certain hours, 
for all comers and goers by 
to gaze at." " Ducking in 
running water " is also men- 
tioned as a punishment for 
this class of offenders. Philip 
Ratcliffe, of the colony, was 
sentenced to " be whipped, 
have his ears cut off, fined 
forty shillings, and banished 
out of the limits of the juris- 
diction, for uttering mali- 
cious and scandalous speeches 
against the government and 
the church of Salem." As 
to the " prophanely behaved " 
person, who lingered " without dores att the meeting-house on 
the Lord's daies," to indulge in social chat or even to steal a 
quiet nap, he was " admonished " by the constables ; on a second 
offence " sett in the stockes," and if 
his moral sense was still perverted, he 
was cited before the court. If any man 
should dare to interrupt the preach- 
ing or falsely charge the minister with 
error, " in the open face of the church," 
or otherwise make " God's wayes con- 
temptible and ridiculous, — every such 
person or persons (whatsoever censure 
the church may passe) shall for the first 
scandall bee convented and reproved 

openly by the magistrates at some Lecture, and bound to their 
good behaviour. And if the second time they breake forth into 
the like contemptuous carriages, they shall either pay five pounds 
to the publique Treasure or stand two houres openly upon a block 
or stoole four foott high uppon a Lecture day, with a paper fixed 
on his Breast, written with capitalle letters, An open and obstinate 
contemner of God's holy ordinances." 




NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 



91 



The first " meeting-houses " consisted of a single room, per- 
haps twenty by thirty-six feet in size and twelve feet high " in the 
stud." The roof was either shingled or thatched with long 
grass. It was a great advance when they were able to have it 
" lathed on the inside, and so daubed and whitened over, work- 
manlike." They were afterwards built with a pyramidal roof, 
crowned with a belfry. The bell-rope hung from the centre, and 
the sexton performed his office half way between the pulpit and 
the large entrance door. Such a meeting-house, built in 1681, 
still stands in Hingham, Massachusetts. 

In the early Plymouth days every house opened on Sunday 
morning at the tap of the drum. The men in " sad colored man- 
tles," and armed to the teeth, the women in sober gowns, 
kerchiefs and hoods, all assembled in front of the captain's house. 
Three abreast, they marched up the hill to the meeting-house, 
where every man set down his musket within easy reach. The 
elders and deacons took their seat 
in a " long pue " in front of the 
preacher's desk, facing the congre- 
gation. The old men, the young 
men, and the young women each 
had their separate place. The 
boys were gravely perched on the 
pulpit-stairs or in the galleries, and 
had a constable or tithing-man to 
keep them in order. The light 
came straggling through the little 
diamond -shaped window-panes, 
weirdly gilding the wolf-heads 
which hung upon the walls — tro- 
phies of the year's conquests. As 

glass was scarce, oiled paper was sometimes used in its stead. The 
service began with the long prayer, and was followed by reading 
and expounding of the Scriptures, a psalm — lined by one of the 
ruling elders — from Ainsworth's Version, which the colonists 
brought over with them, and the sermon. Instrumental music 
was absolutely proscribed, as condemned by the text (Amos v. 23), 
" I will not hear the melody of thy viols" ; and one tune for each 
metre was all those good old fathers needed. Those now known 
as York, Hackney, Windsor, St. Mary's, and Martyrs were the 
standard stock, and they were intoned with a devout zeal almost 




THE FIRST CHIRCH ERECTED IN CC 
HARTFORD, 1638. 



92 COLONIAL LIFE. 

forgotten in these modern times of organs and trained choirs. 
The approved length of the sermon was an hour, and the sexton 
turned the hour-glass which stood upon the desk before the min- 
ister. But woe to the unlucky youngster whose eyelids drooped 
in slumber ! The ever-vigilant constables, with their wands 
tipped on one extremity with the foot and on the other with the 
tail of a hare, brought the heavier end down sharply on the little 
nodding, flaxen head. The careworn matron who was betrayed 
into a like offence was gently reminded of her duty by a touch 
on the forehead with the softer end of the same stick. After the 
sermon came the weekly contribution. The congregation, 
sternly solemn, marched to the front, the chief men or magis- 
trates first, and deposited their offerings in the money-box held 
by one of the elders or deacons. The occupants of the galleries 
also came down, and marching two abreast, up one aisle and 
down another, paid respect to the church treasury in money, 
paper promises, or articles of value, according to their ability. 
Among other provisions made or recommended for the support 
of the pastor, we find the following: " 1662. The court proposeth 
it as a thing they judge would be very commendable & bene- 
ficiall to the townes where God's providence shall cast any 
whales, if they should agree to sett apart some p'te of every 
such fish or oyle for the incouragement of an able and godly 
minister amongst them." 

A search among the old colonial records is rewarded by 
curious glimpses of Puritan character. Old bachelors seem to 
have been held by the fathers in small respect, and on account of 
the " great inconvenience " arising from their anomalous condition, 
it was ordered that " henceforth noe single p'sons be suffered to live 
of himself or in any family, but as the celect men of the towne 
shall approve of." No youth under twenty-one should " take any 
tobacko untill hee had brought a certificate under the hands of 
some who are approved for knowledge and skill in phisick, that it 
is useful for him, and also that he hath received a lycense from 
the courte for the same." We read of fines for the juryman who 
should indulge in tobacco the same day of rendering verdict ; 
also for all persons — except soldiers on training days — who used 
it " in very uncivil manner publickly " in the streets ; or " within 
ten miles of any house, and then not more than once a day " ; 
penalties for the " bringing in to the colony of any Quaker, 
Rantor, or other notorious heritiques," and, strangest of all to 



NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 93 

the eyes of the active, wire-pulling politician of to-day, a law 
that any who " were elected to the office of Governor, and would 
not stand to the election, nor hold and execute the office for his 
year," should " be amerced in Twenty pounds sterling fine," as 
the price of his modesty or contumacy ! O for the refreshing 
shadow of our great-grandfathers to overhang the nineteenth 
century caucus ! 

Fast and thanksgiving were the great public days. A fast-day 
was regularly kept at the season of annual planting ; but days of 
fasting and prayer were often appointed on account of some special 
or threatened calamity. In 1644, one day in every month was or- 
deied to be thus observed. Excellent care, however, was always 
taken to avoid a fast on Good Friday, as well as to keep clear of 
a feast on Christmas. Our Puritan forefathers were rigidly jeal- 
ous of the slightest concession to " Popish " customs. We cannot 
suppress a smile when we read that, not content with denying the 
title of " Saint " to the apostles and ancient Christian fathers, they 
even refused to speak it when applied to places. " The Island of 
St. Christophers was always wrote Christophers, and by the same 
rule all other places to which Saint had been prefixed. If any 
exception was made, an answer was ready : Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob had as good right to this appellation as Peter, James, and 
John." " Because," says Lechford, " they would avoid all 
memory of heathenish and idols' names," they designated the 
days of the week and the months of the year by numbers. 
March was the first month, and Sunday or Sabbath, as they 
styled it, the first day. Morton, who complained before the 
Lords Commissioners of the Plantations in England of some of 
the Puritan ways, especially marriages by magistrates, says, 
" The people of New Engiand hold the use of a ring in marriage 
to be a relique of popery, a diabolical circle for the Devell to 
daunce in." 

Whatever cheer was lost, from conscientious scruples, at 
Christmas-tide, was made up on Thanksgiving day, especially in 
Connecticut. From its first celebration, eighteen years after the 
Mayflower landing, it was the great social event of the whole 
twelve months. The growing family was gathered, from far and 
near, and clustering round the paternal hearthstone, forgot every 
trial in the joys of kinship. For days before it came, the plump- 
est fowls, the yellowest pumpkins, and the finest of vegetables 
were marked and put aside. The stalled ox and the fatted calf 



94 COLONIAL LIFE. 

were killed. When the glad morning arrived a happy flutter 
pervaded every home. Children's feet pattered over the old farm- 
house from cellar to garret and made the rafters echo with their 
noisy glee. " Sometimes there were so many that the house 
would scarcely hold them ; but the dear old grandmother, whose 
memory could hardly keep the constantly lengthening record of 
their births, and whose eye, dim with tears and age, could never 
see which child to love the best, welcomed each with a trembling 
hand and overflowing heart." — (Hollistcr s Hist, of Conn.) After 
the public service, came the generous dinner ; and then all gath- 
ered around the blazing hickory fire to listen to the joys and 
perils of the year. As the little eyes grew sleepy and fair heads 
began to nod with very weariness of enjoyment, the old family 
Bible was brought out, and the day was closed with a fervent 
thanksgiving for mercies past and supplications for the future. 
Huskings, apple-parings, and quiltings were also favorite occa- 
sions for social gathering. Governor Winthrop prohibited cards 
and gaming-tables. Dancing, however, was not entirely for- 
bidden in New England circles, for we read that it was long the 
custom in Connecticut for the young people of a parish to cele- 
brate the settlement of the new minister by an ordination ball. 
But these gradually fell into disrepute, and were at last sup- 
pressed by public sentiment. 

The houses of most of the first settlers were, of necessity, 
primitive — a log cabin, often of a single room, with an immense 
chimney built externally at its side. The chinks between the 
logs were " daubed," as the term was, with a mortar of clay 
and straw. Tall grass, gathered along the beaches, was largely 
used for the thatching of roofs. There were not wanting, 
however, some " fair and stately houses," for which the New 
Haven people were reproved as having " laid out too much of 
their stocks and estates" in them. One Isaac Allerton, especially, 
is mentioned as having " built a grand house on the creek, with 
four porches." Governor Coddington built a brick house in 
Boston before he went thence to found his colony. Rev. Mr. 
Whitefield's stone house in Guilford, Conn., has endured two hun- 
dred and thirty-seven years, and is the oldest house, standing 
as originally built, in the United States, north of Florida. After 
thirty years, a better class of dwellings began to be more com- 
mon. They were usually made of heavy oak frames, put together 
in the most solid manner, and made secure at night by massive 



NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



95 




WHITEFIELD's HOUSE, GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT. 



wooden bars. After the Indians and wild beasts had been driven 
back by increased settlement, bolts and bars fell into disuse. The 
foundations of the huge 
old stone chimneys were 
about twelve feet square. 
Forest logs four feet in 
length were piled upon 
the ponderous andirons, 
and on occasions a big 
"back -log" was drawn 
into the house by a horse, 
and then rolled into the 
fireplace with hand-spikes. 
"Blazing hearthstones" 
had then a meaning at 
which, in our days of fur- 
naces and steam -pipes, 
we can only guess. No 
need for artificial venti- 
lators when, through the 

crevices of the building, swept such keen, brisk currents of air. 
In the morning the farmer and his family sat down to their break- 
fast of " bean porridge," or boiled cornmeal and milk, with a 
healthy appetite. Beer, cider, or cold water furnished their usual 
beverage ; for tea and coffee were unknown in New England 
homes in the seventeenth century. " Rye and Indian " was the 
staff of life on which they leaned the most. We can fancy a New 
England table of those early days, with its pewter dishes, bright- 
ened to their utmost polish, and, in the wealthier households, here 
and there a silver beaker or tankard, the heirloom of the family. 
The dinner, which is at noon, opens with a large Indian pudding 
— ground corn sweetened with molasses — accompanied by an 
appropriate sauce ; next come boiled beef and pork ; then 
wild game with potatoes, followed by turnips and samp or succo- 
tash. Pumpkins were served in various ways. Supper was also 
a substantial meal, though generally eaten cold. Baked beans, 
baked Indian pudding, and newly-baked rye and Indian bread 
were standard dishes for Wednesday, " after the washing and 
ironing agonies of Monday and Tuesday " ; salt fish on Saturday, 
but never on Friday, the " Popish " fast-day ; and boiled Indian 
pudding, with roast beef for those who could get it, on Sunday. 



g6 COLONIAL LIFE. 

Although, from the scarcity of laborers, the proprietors toiled 
often in the same fields with the servants they had brought over 
from Old England, it must not be supposed that there were no 
grades or degrees in society. Titles, however, were used spar- 
ingly. Even that of Reverend does not seem to have been in use 
for at least a half century after the Mayflower touched port — the 
minister being addressed and recorded as Mr., Pastor, Teacher, 
or Elder. The first prefix, in fact, indicated much more in old 
colonial times than at present. Clergymen, the more distin- 
guished members of the General Court, highly-born and Univer- 
sity-bred men alone, were honored with it. Young men, of what- 
ever rank, were seldom granted it. To be called Mr., or to have 
one's name recorded by the secretary with that prefix, two hun- 
dred years ago, was a pretty certain index of the person's rank as 
respects birth, education, and moral character. As for the com- 
mon people above the grade of servants, the yeomen, tenants, 
owners of small estates, and even many deputies to the Genera". 
Court, they were content with the appellation of Goodman, thei 
wives receiving the corresponding one of Goodwife. The title ci 
Sir was often given to undergraduates at a university or college 
who belonged to distinguished families. " Hence a son of Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, Mr. Sherman, or Governor Treat, returning 
home from Yale or Cambridge to spend a vacation, would be 
greeted by his old companions as Sir Winthrop, Sir Sherman, or 
Sir Treat." The Esquire or Squire was added or prefixed to de- 
scendants of the English nobility, sons of baronets, knights, etc. 
Such titles as " the Honored," " the Worshipful," " the Worshipful 
and much Honored," sometimes occur prefixed to such names as 
John Winthrop, or Captain John Allyn. Military titles were 
especially reverenced, for a long time " Captain " being the highest 
given. 

Training-day was a great event. All the men from sixteen to 
sixty years of age were required to participate in the general drill. 
There does not appear to have been any uniform dress, and no 
music but that of the drum to inspirit the military movements ; 
but as every member of the militia practised for the defence of 
his own household, we can well imagine that there was lacking 
neither zest nor zeal. At Plymouth, by law, trainings were 
" always begun and ended with prayer." The pikemen — the tall- 
est and strongest in the colony — shouldered their pikes — ten feet 
in length, besides the spear at the end — with religious resolution; 



NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



97 



the musketeers firmly grasped their clumsy old matchlocks ; and 
the young Puritan boys looked on and sighed with envy, longing 
for the time when they, too, might wear helmet and. breastplate, 
or a cotton-stuffed coat to turn the Indian arrows. To be even 
a corporal in the militia was an honor which required an extra 







"^^p^^w^g 



TRAINING-DAY IN THE OLDEN TIME. 



amount of humility to bear without danger to the soul. John 
Hull, a prosperous Boston merchant, chosen to that office in 1648, 
praises God for giving him " acceptance and favor in the eyes 
of His people, and, as a fruit thereof, advancement above his 
deserts." 

How would those ante-revolutionary fathers have stared at 
our swift express trains, our lines of telegraphic wires, and our 
pleasure-trips from Atlantic to Pacific shore ! Even a stage-coach 
was to them a luxury yet unknown. The fair bride accompanied 
her husband, gentleman or yeoman, on the wedding trip, from her 
father's house to his own home, wherever it might be, seated on 
a pillion behind him on his horse. She expected to prove a " help 
meet for him," as the minister's wedding counsels emphatically 
enjoined ; and in her traveling costume of possibly a plain blue and 
white gown, the product of her own industry, she was as lovely 
in her sturdy husband's eye as the daintiest of modern brides can 
ever hope to be. Indeed, her fresh, glowing cheeks, and plump, 
elastic form might well strike envy to the heart of many a modern 
7 



oS 



COLONIAL LIFE. 




^f^a/jm 



A WEDDING JOURNEY. 



belle. Notwithstanding the general simplicity of dress, however, 
in the early colonial times, great public days called out many an 
elegant costume. The rich articles of apparel brought over by 
the higher class 
of emigrants 
were carefully 
preserved, and 
lace ruffles, elab- 
orate embroid- 
ery, silk and vel- 
vet caps, and 
gold and silver 
shoe and knee 
buckles, made a 

gathering of wealthy colonists a 
much gayer affair than a black-coat- 
ed party of to-day. Tightly-fitting 
small-clothes and high hose, a coat 
extending to the knees and fastened 
in front with buttons, clasps, or hooks 

and eyes, its full skirts stiffened with buckram and the habit itself 
profusely decorated with gold lace, a plaited stock of fine linen 
cambric with a large silver buckle at the back of the neck, a 
broad-brimmed, high-crowned, sugar-loaf hat, beneath which fell 
the long, luxuriant curls of the bleached or powdered wig, and a 
fashionable red cloak, gave to the dignified New England father 
an air of unquestionable gentility. The skins of animals were much 
used for garments. In the inventory of a wealthy Connecticut 
settler, who died in 1649, are enumerated " two raccoon coats, one 
wolf-skin coat, four bear-skins, three moose." Sheep and deer 
skins did like service. The small-clothes usually fitted quite 
closely to the person, and " those men were thought very fortu- 
nate whose forms were such that they could wear small-clothes 
above the hips without appurtenances, and stockings above the 
calf of the leg without garters." The well-to-do matrons carried 
their long-trailed gowns, " liberally set off with flounces and fur- 
belows," gracefully over one arm, or had them "trolloped" in 
loops at the side, or let them sweep their full course — " from half 
a yard to a yard and a half" — along the floor. If in this they 
transgressed the statute which forbade any excess " beyond the 
necessary end 6f apparell for covering," some of them evidently 






NEW ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 99 

fulfilled its requirements in the upper cut of their robes, for before 
the end of the seventeenth century we hear Boston denounced as 
a "lost town," because of its "strange and fantastick fashions and 
attire, naked backs and bare breasts." Not to be behind the 
sugar-loaf appendages which brought their husbands up in the 
world, the ladies appeared in towering head-dresses of crape, 
muslin, or lace. The distinctions in dress between the higher 
and lower ranks of society which marked the old country were 
jealously guarded here. But American air from the first seems 
to have been charged with independence, so that all who touched 
our shores felt more or less the influence of the electric current. 
The spirit of equal rights, born in the untamed forest and undis- 
turbed for centuries, refused to be banished its native haunts. It 
was, perhaps, as much an innocent ambition to rise in society as a 
mere love of finery which tempted the common people to ape the 
dress and condition of their betters in station. Before a score of 
years had passed, this tendency had become a source of anxiety to 
the careful colonial legislators. In 1640, it was ordered that as 
" divers Persons of severall Ranks are obsearved still to exceede " 
in their apparel, " the Constables of every towne within there 
Libertyes shall observe and take notice of any particular Person 
or Persons within thier several Lymits, and all such as they judge 
to exceede thier condition and Rank therein, they shall present 
and warn to appear at the particular Court." Among the pro- 
scribed articles appear "embroidered and needle -work caps," 
" gold and silver girdles," " immoderate great sleeves," and 
" slashed apparel." Rev. Nathaniel Ward, author of the " Body 
of Liberties," which was adopted (1641) as the code of laws for 
Massachusetts, and substantially for Connecticut, was sorely tried 
by the "female foppery" of the time. In a book entitled "The 
Simple Cobler of Agawam, in America, Willing to help Mend 
his Native Country, lamentably tattered, both in the Upper- 
leather and the Sole," etc., illustrative of colonial life and man- 
ners, he thus breaks forth : " I honour the woman that can honour 
herselfe with her attire ; a good text alwayes deserves a fair mar- 
gent ; I am not much offended if I see a trimme, far trimmer than 
she that wears it ; in a word, whatever Christianity or Civility 
will allow, I can afford with London measure ; but when I heare a 
nugiperous gentle dame inquire what dresse the Queen is in this 
week ; what the nudiustertian fashion of the Court ; I meane the 
very newest ; with egge to be in it in all haste, whatever it be ; I 



IOO COLONIAL LIFE. 

look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter 
of a cipher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if she were 
of a kickable substance, than either honour'd or humour'd. To 
speak moderately, I truly confesse, it is beyond the ken of my 
understanding to conceive how those women should have any 
true grace, or valuable vertue, that have so little wit as to dis- 
figure themselves with such exotick garbes, as not only dismantles 
their native lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gant bargeese 
ill-shapen — shotten — shell-fish, Egyptian Hyeroglyphicks, or at 
the best into French flurts of the pastery, which a proper English 
woman should scorne with her- heels; it is no marvell they weare 
drailes on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing as it 
seems in the fore part, but a few squirrils' brains to help them 
frisk from one ill-favored fashion to another." The evil seems 
not to have been remedied in 1676, for we find that still the 
"rising Generation" was "in danger to be corrupted" by an ex- 
cess in apparel, which is " testifyed against in God's holy Word," 
and it was therefore ordered that " what person soever shall wear 
Gold or Silver Lace, or Gold or Silver Buttons, Silk Ribbons, or 
other costly superfluous trimmings, or any bone Lace above three 
shillings per yard, or Silk Scarfes," should pay equal taxes with 
those whose rank or fortune allowed such privileges. The families 
of public and military officers, and "such whose quality and estate 
have been above the ordinary degree, though now decayed," were 
excepted from this decree. These good old fathers even went 
further in their restrictions : " It is further ordered that all such 
persons as shall for the future make, or weave, or buy any apparell 
exceeding the quality and condition of their persons and Estates, or 
that is apparently beyond the necessary end of apparell for cover- 
ing or comeliness, either of these to be Judged by the Grand Jury 
and County Court where such presentments are made, shall for- 
feit for every such offence ten shillings." 

These sumptuary laws were not a dead letter, for we hear that 
Alice Flynt's " silk hood " was cited before the court, and she re- 
quired to prove that she was entitled to wear it by her property 
of two hundred pounds; and of the "great boots" of Jonas Fair- 
banks, out of the shadow of whose guilt he managed to escape. 

The price of wages was also regulated by law, and it was settled 
( 1 64 1 ) that " carpenters, plowrights, wheelrights, masons, joyners, 
smithes, and coopers shall not take above twenty pence for a day's 
work from the 10th of March to the 10th of October, and not 



THE DUTCH IN NEW YORK. IOI 

above eighteen pence a day for the other part of the yere, and to 
work ten hours in the day in the summer tyme, besides that which 
is spent in eating or sleeping, and six hours in the winter." The 
court, however, soon " found by experience that it would not avail 
by any law to redress the excessive rates of laborers' and work- 
men's wages, etc. ; for, being restrained, they would either remove 
to other places where they might have more, or else, being able 
to live by planting and other employments of their own, they 
would not be hired at all." — (Winthrop.) 



THE DUTCH IN jNEW YORK. 

The followers of Hendrick Hudson were quite a different 
people. To the bustling energy and severe religious laws of 
New England they opposed an easy good nature and impertur- 
bable content. Only in the painfulness of extreme neatness did 
they resemble and even surpass their northern and eastern 
neighbors. Let us recall a comfortable Dutch mansion of the 
seventeenth century. Its gable-end of small black and yellow 
Dutch bricks, receding in regular steps from the base of the roof 
to the summit, and there crowned with a " fierce little weather- 
cock," stood squarely to the street. Not ashamed to let its age 
be known, it was proclaimed in straggling iron figures upon the 
front. The inevitable porch, elevated by a few steps, was covered 
by a wooden awning, or perhaps a lattice-work, over which 
luxuriantly drooped and wandered a wild grape-vine. Multi- 
tudes of wrens flitted in and out this sylvan nook, and, says a 
Scotch lady, reporting Albany life at this period, " while break- 
fasting or drinking tea in the airy portico, birds were constantly 
gliding over the table with a butterfly, grasshopper, or cicada in 
their bills to feed their young, who were chirping above." These 
porches were the universal rendezvous in the after-part of the 
day. The old people clustered together in one, the younger in 
another, and the children sat placidly on the steps and ate their 
bread and milk before retiring ; while the beaux sauntered along 
and cast shy glances toward their favorite maidens, or accepted 
an invitation to join the little group. The gutters on the roofs 
often stretched almost to the middle of the street, to the great 



102 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



annoyance of passers-by. The front door, opened only on rare 
occasions, was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, 
wrought in a curious animal device. This was the pride of the 
housewife, and was burnished daily with intense solicitude. A 
wide passage extended through the house, with doors at either 
end ; this, furnished with chairs and having always a scrupulously 




DUTCH MANSION AND COTTAGE IN NEW AMSTERDAM. 



white sanded floor, served for a summer parlor. Aside from this 
reception-hall, there were but two large rooms on the first floor, 
with light, ample closets adjoining. On account of the difficulty 
of warming these, and to save the best furniture from the dust 
and smoke of huge wood fires, the family usually retired in the 
winter to a small addition in the rear, consisting of one or two 
rooms above and below. This was built of wood, as indeed was 
ordinarily the whole house, except the pretentious gable front. 
While the Connecticut mistress spun, wove, and stored her 
household linens in crowded chests, the Dutch matron scrubbed 
and scoured her polished floor and woodwork. Dirt in no form 
could be endured bv her ; and dear as water was in the city, 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE DUTCH. IO3 

where it was generally sold at a penny a gallon, it was used 
unsparingly. Fine furniture was the good housewife's weakness. 
Ponderous tables, drawers resplendent with brass ornaments, 
quaint corner cupboards, beds and bedsteads, and even the 
frying-pan and immense Dutch oven had her most loving regards. 
" The mirrors, the paintings, the china, but, above all, the state 
bed," records the author above mentioned, " were considered as 
the family seraphim, secretly worshipped and only exhibited on 
very rare occasions." " The grand parlor," says Washington 
Irving, " was the sanctum sanctorum where the passion for 
cleaning was indulged without control. In this sacred apartment 
no one was permitted to enter excepting the mistress and her 
confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the purpose of 
giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to rights — 
always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door 
and entering devoutly on their stocking feet. After scrubbing 
the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously 
stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids with a broom — 
after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, 
and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fireplace, the win- 
dow-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the 
room carefully locked up until the revolution of time brought 
round the weekly cleaning day." 

In the early spring the good vrow donned her green calash, 
took her rake over her shoulder, and with her little painted 
basket of seeds went out to make the family garden. Myn- 
heer was much too clumsy to be trusted in the delicate care of 
salads and sweet herbs, celery or asparagus ; cabbages and 
potatoes and such like he cultivated in the field between the rows 
of Indian corn, but into the little spot sacred to the tenderer 
plants, no foot of man intruded, after it was dug in spring. The 
stakes to the simple deal fence, which enclosed the garden and 
the orchard, were oddly ornamented with skeleton heads of 
cattle and of horses ; the jaws being fixed on the pole, with the 
skull uppermost. Samson's riddle here received a daily exempli- 
fication, for the birds built their nests therein and sent forth 
broods of young ones from the ghastly orifice. In clearing the 
way for the first establishment, a tree was always left in the mid- 
dle of the back yard for the sole benefit of these little songsters ; 
this tree being pollarded at midsummer when full of sap, every 
excised branch left a little hollow, and every hollow was the home 



I 



104 COLONIAL LIFE. 

of a bird. It was also a custom to leave an ancient tree, or to 
plant one of some kind directly in front of the doorway, which 
the household regarded with great veneration. 

Every family had a cow, fed through the day in a common 
pasture at the end of the town. They came at night and went in 
the morning of their own accord, like proper adjuncts to sedate 
and systematic households, and their tinkling bells never failed to 
warn of their approach along the grassy streets when the proper 
hour for milking arrived. Being allowed, however, to roam the 
town from evening to morning milking, they, by no means, 
improved the neatness of the highways, which presented a 
strange contrast in that respect to the immaculate interiors of the 
houses. On dark nights housekeepers were required to keep 
lights — tallow candles — in their front windows, and "every 
seventh householder " was obliged to " hang out a lanthorn and 
candle on a pole." 

The happy burghers breakfasted at dawn, dined at eleven, and 
retired at sunset. No change was ever made in the arrangements 
for the family dinner in favor of a guest, and the unexpected 
visitor was received at that meal with unmistakable signs of 
coldness and disfavor. A company tea, however, was a " perfect 
regale," and cakes, sweetmeats, cold pastry, and fruit in abundance 
garnished a table which also often tempted by a fine array of 
roasted game or poultry, or, in its season, shell-fish. Clams — 
called clippers — was a favorite food. The tea was served from a 
large porcelain tea-pot, " ornamented with paintings of fat little 
shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in 
the air and houses built in the clouds " — a cherished souvenir of 
Delft in the dear mother-country. The decoction was taken 
without milk, but a lump of sugar was placed beside each cup, 
the company alternately nibbling and sipping according to indi- 
vidual relish. Another custom was to suspend an immense lump 
of sugar by a string from the ceiling directly overhead, so that it 
could be swung from mouth to mouth and prevent unnecessary 
waste. Irving has so inimitably portrayed a " fashionable tea- 
party " of those days that it were a pity not to recall it here. 
" These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher 
classes, that is to say, those who kept their own cows and drove 
their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three 
o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was winter time, when 
the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE DUTCH. IOS 

get home before dark. The tea-table was crowned with a nuge 
earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut 
up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. Sometimes the table 
was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved 
peaches and pears ; but it was always sure to boast an enormous 
dish of doughnuts or olykoeks. At these decorous gatherings the 
young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed 
chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings ; nor ever opened 
their lips except to say, Yah Mynheer, or, Yah ya Vrouw, to any 
question that was asked them. As to the gentlemen, each of 
them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contempla- 
tion of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were 
decorated ; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously 
portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage ; 
Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet, and Jonah appeared 
most manfully bouncing out of the whale." A silent grace before 
meat was the usual habit with the Hollanders. Mush or bread 
with buttermilk, " and if to that they added sugar, it was thought 
delicious," constituted the standard family supper. On occasion 
of Dutch dances, a pot of chocolate and some bread were deemed 
sufficient refreshment. New Year's Day was the one of all the 
year for gayety and festivity. Our delightful fashion of New 
Year's calls is an inheritance from the Hollanders, who were also 
accustomed to exchange presents and other complimentary tokens 
on that day. General Washington, speaking of this usage, once 
remarked : " New York will in process of years gradually change 
its ancient customs and manners ; but whatever changes take 
place, never forget the cordial observance of New Year's Day." 
To the Dutch also we owe our Christmas visit of Santa Claus, 
colored eggs at Easter, doughnuts, crullers, and New Year's 
cookies. 

A Dutch belle of the seventeenth century wore her hair 
smoothly plastered back with suet tallow, under a quilted cap. 
Her gayly-striped linsey-woolsey petticoat — or rather petticoats, 
for her fortune was estimated by the number of garments she 
wore — came a little below the knee, affording an admirable view 
of her blue worsted stockings, adorned with bright red clocks, 
and her high-heeled, silver-buckled leather shoes. From her 
girdle depended her huge patch-work pocket, her scissors and 
her pincushion, potent charms, or possibly coquetries of the 
times, which did not fail to touch the tender part of Mynheer's 



io6 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



V 



nature when, between his puffs, he settled the question of a com- 
petent vrow. The work-basket always accompanied her on picnic 
excursions, and while " the boys " fished or hunted to procure 

game for the coming 
supper, the girls con- 
soled themselves for 
their absence in knit- 
ting or sewing. The 
walls of the " spare 
room " in a Dutch 
home were not in- 
frequently covered 
with extra homespun 
garments, a rather 
unique decoration, 
but an honest certifi- 
cate of the industry, 
and considered as a 
sign of the wealth, 
of the household. 
As to Mynheer him- 
self, the number of 
his breeches or galli- 
gaskins rivalled those 
of his fair one's petti- 
coats, and unneces- 
sarily heightened the 
proportions of his rotund figure. His linsey-woolsey coat — doubly 
precious when spun and woven by the fair maid of his choice, as 
often it was, for love-gifts were substantial then — was profusely 
adorned with large brass buttons ; enormous copper buckles set 
off his unquestionably broad understanding; a low-crowned, wide- 
brimmed hat shadowed his phlegmatic countenance, and his hair 
dangled down his back in a prodigious queue of eelskin. His pipe 
was an indispensable adjunct to his mouth. 

The young Albanian had a custom of proving his worth to his 
lady-love by pushing, with a cargo of blankets, guns, beads, and 
various articles packed in a light canoe, into the deep forest, 
attended only by a faithful slave, and establishing trade with the 
Indians. If he succeeded well, he enlarged his business and 
followed it through life, or disposing of his schooner — which it 




DUTCH COURTSHIP. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 6F THE DUTCH." 1 07 

was his pride to own before he settled down— embraced less 
exciting mercantile or agricultural pursuits. The usual dower of 
a daughter was a well-brought-up female slave and the furniture 
of the best bed-chamber. There were two standard amusements 
among young people — sliding down hill in winter, and pillaging 
pigs and turkeys from a neighbor's garden. This was con- 
sidered frolic, not theft, though the owner — if he failed to over- 
take and chastise the robbers, which was his token of gallantry — 
never saw his property again. The married man shut himself 
out from these sports, as unbefitting his dignity, but the bride- 
groom was sure to receive such a visit from some of his old com- 
panions. A story is told of two parties out one night on the 
same business. Both attacked the same place. The chief of the 
second party, finding the game gone, suspected the other, and 
followed it to an inn, where he found the coveted pig roasting 
before the fire. Sending the maid out on a trivial excuse, he cut 
the string by which the pig was suspended, and laying it in the 
dripping-pan, carried it swiftly through the dark and quiet streets 
to another inn, where his companions were awaiting him. The 
first party, not to be outdone, and rightly guessing the offenders, 
sent a messenger to the other inn, where supper and " the pig " 
had just been served. Throwing a huge parcel of shavings 
before the door, he touched a match to them, and crying " fire " 
with all his might, soon drew every occupant to the front. Steal- 
ing in the back way, he secured the traveled treasure, and rushing 
back to his friends, they feasted on the spoils. Strawberries 
abounded in June, when " the country people, perceiving that the 
fields and woods were dyed red, would go forth with wine, 
cream, and sugar ; and instead of a coat of mail, every one takes 
up a female behind him on horseback, and starting for the fields, 
set to picking the fruit and regaling themselves as long as they 
list." 

Our Dutch friends seem to have regarded offences of the 
tongue with as little favor as the Puritans, though their punish- 
ments were milder. In 1638, one Hendrick Jansen is made to 
stand at the fort door at the ringing of the bell, and ask the gov- 
ernor's pardon for having " scandalized " him. This same Hen- 
drick Jansen, evidently an over-officious reformer, preferred a 
charge against the minister's wife for having " drawn up her petti- 
coat a little way in the street." A woman who had the temerity to 
slander the minister was obliged also to appear at the fort door. 



io8 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



and publicly confess that "she knew he was honest and pious, and 
that she lied falsely." The " wooden horse " was a peculiar pun- 
ishment. It had a very sharp back, upon which the offender was 
tightly strapped, or had weights tied to his feet, the horse being 
first put into the cart body. A woman was the first who received 
this penalty, and the instrument was named after her, " the horse 
of Mary Price." Culprits were sometimes led about the town 
fastened to the back of the cart, being whipped as they went. 
These customs continued as late as the middle of the eighteenth 
century, as witness an advertisement from the New York 
Gazette of March, 1750: " The Public Whipper being lately dead, 
twenty pounds a year is offered to a successor at the mayor's 
office." This, with other short items, is printed on the margin 
of the sheet, in a transverse direction to the column matter, 
another instance of the economy of the early New Yorkers. 

The Dutch dominies were paid sometimes in beaver-skins — 
the dominie of Albany at one time received one hundred and fifty 
— and sometimes in wampum or seawant, a kind of Indian money 

consisting of strings of clam- 
shells. Its current value was 
six beads of the white or three 
of the black for an English 
penny. In 1641, the New York 
City Council complains that " a 
great deal of bad seawant, nasty, 
rough things, imported from 
other places," was in circula- 
tion, while " the good, splendid 
Manhattan seawant was out of 
sight or exported, which must 
cause the ruin of the country." 
The city schoolmasters of those 
days acted also as clerks, chor- 
isters, and visitors of the sick. 
The names of those old Dutch 
dignitaries sound strangely 
enough to modern ears. There 
were the hoofd-schout (high 
sheriff), the wees-meester (guardian of orphans), the roy-meester 
(regulator of fences), the eyck-meester (weigh-master), the geheim- 
schryver (recorder of secrets), and the groot burgerrecht, or great 




YE DUTCH SCHOOLMASTER. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE DUTCH. IO9 

citizen, in opposition to the klein burgerrecht, or small citizen. 
Only the " great citizens," of whom there were not more than a 
score, could hold offices, and in 1668, the number being so small, 
and many inconveniences arising in consequence, the distinction 
was abolished. 

We have not particularized the family life of that exceptional 
class, the " patroons," who occupied a position not unlike that of 
an English baron with feudal retainers. Their social customs 
were simply those of the best European society of the day. 
They, themselves, were regarded by their numerous tenants with 
a certain respect and reverence which has had no counterpart 
since the Revolution. Holmes characterizes this feeling and the 
former accepted distinction of ranks, in his poem of " Agnes," 
where a gentlemen of the olden time went out to drive, 

" And all the midland counties through, 

The ploughman stopped to gaze, 
Where'er his chariot swept in view 

Behind the shining bays, 
With mute obeisance, grave and slow, 

Repaid by bow polite — 
For such the way with high and low, 

Till after Concord's fight*' 

These lords of the manor lived in a princely way on their large 
estates, which passed from father to son for more than a century. 
When the Revolution broke out, many of them declared for the 
king, and thus their lands became confiscated and their names 
ceased to exist in the ruling offices of the country. Few, indeed, 
in our democratic day, even know of the existence in those times 
of estates whose tenants were numbered by thousands, the gather- 
ing together of which was like that of the Scottish clans. When 
death entered the family of the proprietor, they all came to do 
honor at the funeral, " and many were the hogsheads of good ale 
which were broached for them." When Philip Livingston, of 
Livingston Manor, died, at both town and country house " a pipe 
of wine was spiced for the occasion, and to each of the eight 
bearers a pair of gloves, mourning ring, scarf, handkerchief, and 
silver monkey spoon were given." The latter was so named from 
its handle, whose extremity was in the form of an ape. Every 
tenant also received a pair of black gloves and a handkerchief. 
The whole expense amounted to five hundred pounds. In later 
times (1753) Governor William Livingston wrote against extrava- 



HO COLONIAL LIFE. 

gance in funerals ; and his wife, it is said, was tuc; first one who 
ventured, as an example of economy, to substitute linen scarfs 
for the former silk ones. 

In August, 1673, a Dutch fleet recaptured New York from the 
British, and held it one year, calling it meantime New Orange, 
after the Prince of Orange. During this time strict military dis- 
cipline prevailed. " The Dutch mayor, at the head of the city 
militia, held his daily parade before the City Hall (Stadt Huys), 
then at Coenties Slip : and every evening at sunset he received 
from the principal guard of the fort, called hoofd-xvagt, the keys of 
the city, and thereupon proceeded with a guard of six to lock the 
city gates ; then to place a burger-wagt (citizen guard) as a night- 
watch at various places. The same mayors went the rounds at 
sunrise to open the gates and to restore the keys to the officer of 
the fort." The comfort-loving burgher who accepted the posi- 
tion of mayor in those days paid dearly for the honor in the loss 
of his leisurely fireside smoke before breakfast in the morning. 
Mrs. Sigourney has written some lines upon this period, which, as 
a picture of the times, we copy from Watson's "Annals of New 
York," to which book, and those equally rich and spicy volumes 
entitled " Annals of Philadelphia," by the same author, we are in- 
debted for many of the curious facts related in this chapter. The 
lines run thus: 



Lo, with the sun, came forth a goodly train, 
The portly mayor with his full guard of state. 

Hath aught of evil vexed their fair domain, 
That thus its limits they perambulate, 

With heavy, measured steps, and brows of care, 

Counting its scattered roofs with fixed, portentous stare? 

Behold the keys with solemn pomp restored 
To one in warlike costume stoutly braced, 

He, of yon fort, the undisputed lord. 

Deep lines of thought are on his forehead traced, 

As though of Babylon the proud command, 

Or hundred-gated Thebes were yielded to his hand. 

See, here and there, the buildings cluster round, 
All, to the street, their cumbrous gables stretching, 

With square-clipt trees and snug enclosures bound 
(A most uncouth material for sketching) — 

Each with its stoop, from whose sequestered shade 

The Dutchman's evening pipe in cloudy volumes played. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN THE SOUTH. Ill 

Oh, had those ancient dames of high renown — 

The Knickerbockers and the Rapaeljes, 
With high-heeled shoes and ample ten-fold gown, 

Green worsted hose, with clocks of crimson rays- 
Had they, thro' time's dim vista, stretched their gaze, 
Spying their daughters fair in these degenerate days, 

With muslin robe and satin slipper white, 

Thronging to routs, with Fahrenheit at zero, 
Their sylphlike form, for household toils too slight, 

But yet to winter's piercing blast a hero, 
Here had they marvelled at such wondrous lot, 
And scrubbing brush and broom for one short space forgot. 

Yet deem them not for ridicule a theme, 

Those worthy burghers with their spouses kind, 
Scorning of heartless pomp, the gilded dream, 

To deeds of peaceful industry inclined, 
In hospitality sincere and grave, 
Inflexible in truth, in simple virtue brave. 

Hail, mighty city ! high must be his fame 

Who round thy bounds, at sunrise, now should walk; 

Still wert thou lovely, whatsoe'er thy name, 
New Amsterdam, New Orange, or New York, 

Whether in cradle sleep on sea-weed laid, 

Or on thine island throne, in queenly power arrayed. 



EAF^LY COLONIAL LlfE IN THE J30UTH. 

The manners of the Southerners on their plantations were 
quite distinct from those of either Puritan or Dutch. The first 
few years in all new colonies have necessarily a certain degree of. 
sameness. An enforced rude state of living engenders rude and 
peculiar laws. Thus we find decrees in Virginia which strongly 
smack of New England quaintness. The Established Church of 
England was guarded with as jealous strictness in the South as 
were Puritan principles in the North ; the first laws of both 
colonies pertaining to religious observances. In Virginia, accord- 
ing to the regulations of 1632, a room or house in every planta- 
tion was to be set apart for, and consecrated to, worship. Ab- 
sence from service " without allowable excuse " was punished with 
a fine of a pound of tobacco, and if the absence continued a month, 
with fifty pounds. There are rumors of other penalties in earlier 



112 COLONIAL LIFE. 

times, such as being tied neck and heels for a night, and serving as 
a slave to the colony — a week for the first offence, a month for the 
second, and a year and a day for the third. Certain culprits also 
are mentioned as being made to stand in church, wrapped in a 
snowy sheet and holding a white wand, like guilty ghosts or 
transfixed lepers ; or as having the initial letter of their crime 
fastened in a great, bold capital upon their back or breast, as in 
New England. 

Ministers were restrained from a neglect of their duties by a fine 
of half their salary if they absented themselves for two months ; 
losing the entire salary and the cure itself for an absence of double 
that length of time. The salary aforesaid consisted of ten pounds 
of tobacco and a bushel of corn — "the first-gathered and best" — 
from every male over sixteen, with marriage, christening and 
burial fees. In the earliest days, every twentieth calf, pig, and 
kid in the parish were also his due. The clerical liberty was fur- 
ther hedged in by an injunction not to give themselves " to 
excess in drinking or riot, spending their time idly by day or 
night, playing at cards, dice, or other unlawful games ; but to 
read or hear the Holy Scriptures, or to employ themselves in 
other honorable studies or exercise, bearing in mind that they 
ought to be examples to the people to live well and Christianly." 
On the other hand, " he who disparaged a minister Avithout proof, 
was to be fined five hundred pounds of tobacco, and to beg the 
minister's pardon publicly before the congregation." Drunken- 
ness was fined five shillings, and every oath cost one shilling. 
Virginians in 1674 are thus described by Bancroft : " The genera- 
tion now in existence were chiefly the fruit of the soil; they were 
children of the woods, nurtured in the freedom of the wilderness, 
and dwelling in lonely cottages scattered along the streams. No 
newspapers entered their houses ; no printing-press furnished them 
a book. They had no recreations but such as nature provides in 
her wilds ; no education but such as parents in the desert could 
give their offspring. The paths were bridleways rather than 
roads ; and the highway surveyors aimed at nothing more than to 
keep them clear of logs and fallen trees. Visits were made in 
boats or on horseback through the forests; and the Virginian, 
traveling with his pouch of tobacco for currency, swam the rivers, 
where there was neither ferry nor ford. The houses, for the 
most part of one story, and made of wood, often of logs, the 
windows closed by convenient shutters for want of glass, we r e 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN THE SOUTH. II3 

sprinkled at great distances on both sides of the Chesapeake, from 
the Potomac to the line of Carolina. The parish was of such 
extent, spreading over a tract which a day's journey could not 
cross, that the people met together but once on the Lord's day, 
and sometimes not at all ; the church, rudely built in some 
central solitude, was seldom visited by the more remote families, 
and was liable to become inaccessible by the broken limbs from 
forest trees, or the wanton growth of underwood and thickets." 

The genial atmosphere of the " sunny South," so unlike the 
bleak New England climate, and the entirely different products 
of the two soils, each requiring its own peculiar mode of culture, 
served constantly to increase the dissimilarity in character and 
manners which primarily existed between the northern and the 
southern settlers. The large plantations of the latter necessi- 
tated a numerous train of servants. These, supplied at first by 
the apprentices brought over from England, were, in time, super- 
seded by negro slaves. 

There being but few books and little education in those early 
times — only a few families being able to send their sons and daugh- 
ters to England to be instructed — excitement was often sought in 
bull-baiting, horse-racing, fox-hunting, and cock-fighting. These 
amusements, looked upon with horror by the Puritans, were not 
considered at all derogatory to the southern gentleman, who 
copied his sports from those of the English nobility of that day. 
The finest of horses were imported from the mother country, at 
great care and expense, and the Virginian planter was pardonably 
proud of his well-stocked stables. 

The mode of originating a settlement, or, as Dr. Ramsay 
quaintly styles it, " breaking ground on bare creation/' is thus 
described in that author's History of South Carolina. The par- 
ties migrate from the earlier settlements usually in March, or 
about the breaking up of the winter. They " go with family and 
plantation utensils, a few bushels of corn, and some domestic 
animals. After fixing on a site, they build in two or three days a 
cabin with logs, cut down and piled one upon another in the form 
of a square or a parallelogram. The floor is of earth; the roof is 
sometimes of bark, but oftener of split logs. The light is received 
through the door, and in some instances through a window of 
greased paper, or the bottom of a broken glass bottle. Shelter 
being prepared, their next care is to provide food. The large 
trees are girdled and the underbrush destroyed. The ground, 
8 




EARLY AMERICAN PLOW. 



114 COLONIAL LIFE. 

thus exposed to the action of the sun, is roughly ploughed or 
hoed, and so favors the growth of the seed corn that in ninety 

or a hundred days the 
ears are large enough 
to roast, and in six weeks 
more the grain is ripe. 
Meantime the settler 
lives on the corn he 
brought with him, and 
on game and fish. His 
axe and gun furnish him with the means of defence against In- 
dians, wild beasts, and robbers. Light wood or the heart of dry 
pine logs affords a cheap substitute for candles. The surplus of his 
crop may be bartered for homespun garments, or, if he is married, 
he may convert the wool of his sheep or the flax or cotton of his 
field into coarse clothing for domestic use." In a few years a 
frame house is built, floored, and shingled. Other grains besides 
corn are cultivated. Fruits and vegetables supply his table. He 
purchases one or two slaves. He builds a barn and other out- 
houses. His children are put to school. He becomes a member 
of a church. Tea, coffee, and sugar are found on his table. His 
house is glazed and decently furnished. His stock is enlarged 
and made to further serve the interests of his family. The woods 
are ransacked for dye-stuffs, in which Carolina abounds, and the 
homespun adds brilliancy to durability. In short, he has be- 
come an independent man and respected citizen. 

Emigrants from Maine and Vermont often struck into the 
then far west, along the banks of the Monongahela or even of the 
Ohio. We now speak of a time as late as just before the Revolu- 
tion. Having established the " tomahawk right " by hacking the 
trees around the circuit — four hundred acres — to which settlement 
gave them free possession, they commenced pioneer life. Wild 
turkeys, venison, and bears' meat gave them strength while they 
waited the growth of pumpkins, squashes, and potatoes. A hom- 
iny block was hollowed out by fire, and the corn was pounded by 
a pestle ; sometimes, to lessen the toil, by a sweep sixteen feet long. 
Nail-holes in a piece of tin formed a grater for the same purpose ; 
two stones were also used, made to play upon each other in the 
manner in vogue in Palestine since before the days when our 
Saviour spoke of " two women grinding at the mill." A piece of 
deerskin stretched over a hoop and pierced with hot wire made a 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 



115 



good sifter or bolting cloth. A large trough sunk in the ground 
furnished a tan-vat for each family. Ashes were used instead of 
lime to unhair the skin ; bears' grease or hogs' lard served for 
fish-oil, and soot mixed with grease was an efficient blacking. 
The bark was shaved and pounded. Every family did its own 
shoe-making. " Shoe packs" made like moccasins of single pieces 
of leather often answered every purpose. The women spun and 
wove the linsey-woolsey for the family clothing and fashioned 
every garment. 



LATEF( COLORE TIME?. 

In the course of their first century, the rigor of Puritan laws 
was somewhat softened. After the witchcraft terror had spent its 
fury, that crime, as well as heresy and blasphemy, disappeared 
from the statutes as capital offences. Here 
and there, by the side of lonely cross-roads, 
the wanderer still stumbled over heaps of 
stones, "the brand of infamy" under which 
the bones of the unhappy suicide were made 
to rest ; and the pillory, the stocks, and the 
whipping-post had by no means become obso- 
lete as efficient instruments in pointing morals. 
But branded cheeks and foreheads and decapi- 
tated ears were rapidly vanishing from sight 
as a means of stimulating sluggard religious 
consciences, and a man might venture now on 
a piece of mince-pie at Christmas without fear 
of fine or punishment. Crimes committed 
by slaves, who continued to be held in New 
England until the Revolution, were severely punished, and as late 
as the middle of the eighteenth century negroes were burned at 
the stake for such crimes as murder and arson. 

Recreations and amusements, which in the first stages of 
pioneer life are necessarily few, now received more indulgence. 
"Popular assemblies" were introduced into Boston about 1740, 
and although at first severely frowned upon by " all ladies of pro- 
priety," so maintained and strengthened their hold that in a few 
years a handsome hall was built and supported by the lovers of 




l'llli PILLORY. 



Il6 COLONIAL LIFE. 

" musick, dancing, and other polite entertainments." In Litch- 
field, Conn., in 1748, when a violin was used for the first time as 
an accompaniment to the " light fantastic toe," we learn that the 
pastime was enjoyed by " most of the young people," and, further, 
that " the whole expense did not exceed one dollar, out of which 
the fiddler was paid ! " Yet we are told that fathers and mothers 
were wont, then as now, to shake their heads gravely, and sorrow- 
fully bemoan the extravagance of youth ! Verily, in those times 
money was money. Minuets and sometimes country dances 
belonged to polite circles ; " among the lower orders hipsesaw 
was everything," says Watson in his Annals of Philadelphia. 
About the same time of the assemblies appeared the first theatri- 
cal performance in Boston, played at a coffee-house — itself a new 
institution. The idea was so repugnant to New England notions 
that a law was immediately passed which banished the drama 
from Massachusetts for a quarter of a century thereafter. 

In the middle and southern colonies, out of the Puritan ele- 
ment, life was much gayer. To the frequent balls in the southern 
cities, the young ladies from the country, where the roads were 
rough, used to ride in on ponies, attended by a black servant, 
" with their hoops and full dress arranged over the saddle fore 
and aft like lateen-sails ; and after dancing all night, would ride 
home again in the morning." When there was snow, sleighing, 
with a dance to follow, was a popular pastime with the young 
people, but early hours were always kept. The rough, unpainted 
sleigh, capable of carrying thirty persons, was expected to be at 
the door about one o'clock in the afternoon. The gentlemen were 
clothed in cocked-hats, tied under the chin with a blue cotton 
handkerchief, leaving the queue to its own sweet will, a large 
camlet cloak, and oversocks which covered the shoes and reached 
to the small clothes at the knee. Yarn mittens protected the 
hands and a woolen tippet the throat. The ladies were wrapped 
in linsey-woolsey cardinals, with hoods which " were of such am- 
ple dimensions that their heads looked like so many beer-casks." 
The jingle of one or two cow-bells accompanied them. Arrived 
at the place of entertainment, the colored driver tuned his 
three-stringed fiddle, the gentlemen appeared in their square-toed 
pumps, and the ladies shook off their pattens, displaying little 
peak-toed, high-heeled slippers. They danced till eight o'clock, 
then hurried back to their homes, " for," says the relator of this 
entertainment, " to be abroad after nine o'clock on common occa- 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. I17 

sions was a sure sign of moral depravity." The same old gentle- 
man, describing in 1828 to a young lady the courtship and wed- 
ding of her grandfather in New York, sixty years before, gives 
us the following picture : " The lover, after having received per- 
mission of her parents, pays his first visit to his beloved. In snuff- 
colored coat and small-clothes, cornelian brooch, paste buckles, 
lace frill-worked cravat, and heavily pomatumed and powdered 
hair, he is ushered into the family presence. On one side of the 
fireplace sit a bevy of maiden aunts, knitting. On the other side 
is the father, " stretched at his ease in an arm-chair, in a black cap 
instead of his wig, wrapped in a blue gown, with his breeches 
unbuttoned at his knees, quietly smoking his pipe. Mrs. B. in a 
chintz dress and mob-cap was at his side, engaged in making 
patch-work ; whilst the lovely Prudence sat quite erect by her 
mamma, with her pincushion and housewife dangling from her 
waist, her eyes cast down, and her fingers diligently pricking 
themselves instead of her sampler." The young man shows his 
affection by keeping at a respectful distance from his sweetheart ; 
talks politics with the father, assists the mother in arranging her 
party-colored squares, picks up straying balls of yarn for the spin- 
sters, and when the bell rings nine gives one shy glance at his 
beloved and takes his leave. At the wedding which follows a 
succession of visits like the above, the guests mostly come on 
foot, for there are no hackney-coaches, and private carriages are 
not plentiful. The father of the bride is dressed in full-bottomed 
wig, velvet coat and breeches, gold buckles, and waistcoat reach- 
ing to the knees ; the mother in plain brocade and snowy cap ; the 
parson in " gown, cassock and bands, with a wig that seemed to 
consist of a whole unsheared sheepskin — for in 1768 it would have 
been rank heresy for a parson to appear at a wedding in simple 
black coat and pantaloons." The bride had her hair dressed over 
a high cushion and liberally pomatumed and powdered. The 
height of this tower was over a foot, and on its summit lay a single 
white rose. Her tight-sleeved, low-bodiced white satin dress was 
distended at the ankles by an ample hoop, beneath which crept her 
high-heeled, peaked and spangled white kid shoes. A lace hand- 
kerchief crossed over her bosom was fastened by a large brooch 
containing the miniature of her destined husband. The groom 
had his hair sleeked back and highly pomatumed, with the queue 
so stiff that, having had it dressed the afternoon before, he slept 
all night in an arm-chair, that it might not be disturbed. "His 



Il8 COLONIAL LIFE. 

coat was of a sky-blue silk lined with yellow ; his long vest of 
white satin, embroidered with gold lace ; his breeches of the same 
material and tied at the knee with pink ribbon." White silk 
stockings and pumps, lace wrist-ruffles and frill, the latter pinned 
with the miniature of his bride, completed his costume. After 
the ceremony every one saluted the bride with a hearty kiss. 

From this marriage in comparatively high life, let us invite 
ourselves to one in the wilds of Pennsylvania. The parties were 
hardy pioneers. A wedding was to them a frolic, which shared 
with reaping, log-rolling, and house-building for occasion of social 
gathering. The party started early in the morning from the 
house of the groom, proceeding in double file on horses decked in 
old saddles, old bridles or halters, and pack-saddles, with a bag or 
blankets thrown over them ; a rope or string served for a girth. 
The jovial company were above all reproach of fashionable 
extravagance, for not a store, tailor, or mantua-maker existed 
within a hundred miles. Every article of dress was home-made 
and forced to do the longest service possible. The gents appeared 
in shoe-packs, moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, and linsey hunt- 
ing-shirts ; the ladies in linsey petticoats and linsey or linen bed- 
gowns, coarse shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and, if any, buck- 
skin gloves. Fallen trees, interlocked grape-vines and saplings — 
the work of mischief-lovers, friends or foes — often delayed their 
progress. Sometimes a party in ambush fired a feu de joie, when 
the ladies shrieked, screamed, and implored help in finest femi- 
nine style, while their partners bustled around and offered pro- 
tection as valiantly as if they were veritable knights in full steel 
armor and bound to do battle to the death for their true lady- 
loves. As the party neared the house of the bride, two of the 
most chivalrous young men, with an Indian yell, set out full tilt 
for the bottle of whiskey which was hung out for the first arrival. 
Over logs, brush, and muddy hollows, in a flush of pride and dar- 
ing, they galloped on their large-boned, clumsy-footed steeds to 
the end of the goal. The prize won, they returned to the party, 
giving the first drink to the groom, who passed the bottle around ; 
every one, ladies included, joining in the dram. The ceremony 
over, dinner was in order. The table, made of a large slab of 
timber hewn out with a broad-axe and set on four sticks, was 
spread with beef, pork, fowls, and sometimes deer and bear meat. 
Wooden bowls and trenchers, a few pewter dishes and plates, some 
horn and some pewter spoons, served the company as well as 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 



II 9 



could china or silver. If knives were scarce, they carried always 
a substitute in the belts of their hunting-shirts. " After dinner 
dancing commenced, and usually lasted till the next morning. 
The figures were reels, or square sets and jigs. The commence- 
ment was always a square four, which was followed by what 
was called jigging it off; none were allowed to steal away to 
get a sleep, and if girls got tired, they were expected, for want 
of chairs, to sit upon the knees of the gentlemen. At nine or ten 
o'clock at night some of the young ladies would steal off with the 
bride. That was sometimes to a loft above the dancers, going 
there by a ladder ; and such a bride's chamber was floored with 




THE OLD-TIME FIRESIDE. 



clapboards, lying loose and without nails. Some young men, in 
the meantime, stole off the groom to his bride. At a later period, 
they sent them up refreshments, of which ' black Betty,' so called, 
was an essential part, as she stood in their parlance for a bottle of 
whiskey." These entertainments sometimes lasted several days, 
or until every one was " fagged out." Happy for the weary set 
if, when they were ready for their homeward ride, they found 
their property uninjured, for slighted neighbors were sometimes 
wont to show their stealthy presence, by cutting off the manes, 
foretops or tails of the horses belonging to invited guests. 

The prejudices of rank and social precedence brought over 



120 COLONIAL LIFE. 

from England did not easily die out, even in New England. The 
official dignities there were all monopolized by a few leading fami- 
lies, descending often from father to son. And as office now 
shared with wealth and high English connections — " which were 
to be proud of" — in giving admission to the charmed circle of the 
gentry, we may conclude that the public treasury no longer fat- 
tened on fines wrung from contumacious candidates. Until 
within three years of the time when " all men " were declared to 
be " created free and equal," the catalogue of Harvard College — 
Yale had just abolished the system — was arranged according to 
the social rank of the students. The list, made out each year and 
posted in the buttery, bore perpetual testimony to the rule of 
caste. In those days a young man's title to a superior room, or 
speedy attention at table, depended on the date of his father's 
commission as justice of the peace or some kindred petty sign of 
social degree. We can afford to laugh at it now as an excellent 
burlesque on the English custom of ranking by pedigree, but it was 
a sore reality then, as many an unlucky fellow proved. Fashion 
seems also to have invaded that scholastic sanctum, and to have 
divided popular attention with the sublimities of Horace and 
Homer. In 1754, the "overseers" of the college recommended 
the corporation to prohibit the wearing of " gold anr 1 silver lace 
or brocade " by students. Indeed, it is very apparent that the 
day of the plainest, ugliest cuts for all male apparel had nowhere 
yet dawned. 

^he early part of the eighteenth century was particularly 
characterized by high colors in dress. In 1724, a runaway barber 
is advertised. " He wore a light wig, a gray kersey jacket lined 
with blue, a light pair of drugget breeches, black roll-up stock- 
ings, square-toed shoes, a red leathern apron, and white vest with 
yellow buttons and red linings!" About the same time a lady, 
afflicted with the tender passion, thus bursts out in verse describ- 
ing the costume of her beloved : 

" Mine, a tall youth shall at a ball be seen, 
Whose legs are like the spring, all clothed in green ; 
A yellow riband ties his long cravat, 
And a large knot of yellow cocks his hat !" 

The colonial gentry, in their morning negligee, were wont to 
appear in elegant silk and velvet caps and dressing gowns, 
exchanging them when they went out for hats and cloaks which 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 121 

glittered with broad gold lace. The evening drawing-room was 
enlivened by embroidered garments of flowered silk and velvet in 
blue, green, scarlet, or purple hues, adorned with gold lace, silver 
knee-buckles, and silver coat, vest, and breeches buttons. These 
buttons bore sometimes the initial of the wearer, but were often 
made of real quarter-dollars and eleven-penny bits, the former 
being used for the coats and the latter for vests and breeches. 
The other gentlemanly ornaments consisted of gold or silver 
sleeve-buttons, silver stock-buckle, and, perhaps, a shagreen- 
cased watch of tortoise-shell or pinchbeck, with a silver or steel 
chain and seal. The best gentlemen of the country were content 
with silver watches, although gold ones were occasionally used. 
Gold chains would have been a wonder. It was so rare to find 
watches in common use that it was quite an annoyance at the 
watchmaker's to be so repeatedly called on by street-passengers 
for the hour of the day. Wide laced ruffles, falling over the 
hand, a gold or silver snuff-box, and a gold-headed cane were con- 
sidered indispensable to gentility. A well-bred gentleman of 
1776, arrayed in his stately suit of ceremony, moved with a court- 
liness and certain gravity of manner upon which we have hardly 
improved in our day of cultivated French nonchalance. It is 
not to be supposed, however, that any but an exceedingly small 
minority dressed in silks and velvets. 

Broadcloth in winter and silk camlet in summer were popular 
in wealthy circles — coat and breeches of the same material. 
In 1738, Benjamin Franklin advertises for clothes stolen from 
his wardrobe, among which we find : " Broadcloth breeches lined 
with leather, sagathee coat lined with silk, and fine homespun linen 
shirts." Vests were made with great depending pocket-flaps, 
and breeches were short above the stride, suspenders being yet 
an unknown luxury. Working-men wore their breeches very 
full and free in girth, so that, when they became prematurely 
thin in the seat, they could be changed from front to rear. 
Worsted everlasting and buckskin were in great demand, espe- 
cially for breeches, and common people were content with 
leather, homespun, and various heavy wools for winter. Bear- 
skin coats and little woolen muffs of various colors, called 
muftees, were worn by men in severe weather. Homespun 
linens and other light stuffs, coarse and fine, served for summer. 
Boots had not yet come in use, but every thrifty householder kept 
on hand whole calf-skins and sides of stout sole-leather to be 



122 COLONIAL LIFE. 

made into shoes as required. " Before the Revolution no hired 
men or women wore any shoes so fine as calf-skin ; that kind was 
the exclusive property of the gentry ; the servants wore coarse 
neat's leather." Mechanics, workingmen, and "country people 
attending markets " were universally clothed in red or green baize 
vests, striped ticking or leather breeches, and a leathern apron. On 
Sundays or holidays, a white shirt was substituted for the checked 
or speckled one, the deerskin breeches — greasy and stubbornly 
stiff with long wear, and only rendered supple by the warmth of 
the owner's limbs — were blacked or buft up, the coarse blue yarn 
stockings and well-greased shoes set off by a pair of large brass 
buckles, and the apprentice was at his best. Hired women wore 
short gowns of green baize and petticoats of linsey-woolsey, and 
were happy with wages of fifty cents a week. Until after the 
Revolution the dress of working-people and domestics was dis- 
tinct from that of the higher classes. 

Wigs went out of style about twenty years before the Revolu- 
tion, following the lead of George II. and the British officers in 
this country. Previous to that, their use was universal, and as 
human hair could not be obtained in sufficient quantity, horse 
and goat hair "in choice parcels" were freely advertised for this 
purpose. Gray wigs were powdered, the barber performing that 
office on his block-head. After wigs, queues and frizzled side- 
locks had their day. Sometimes the hair was confined in a black 
silk sack or bag, adorned with a large black rose. The three- 
cornered or cocked hat of pre-Revolutionary times is familiar to 
every one. 

Umbrellas were not known before the middle of the century. 
The first used were made of oiled linen, very coarse and clumsy, 
with rattan sticks. Previous to that the gentlemen wore " rain- 
coats" and "roquelaus" — a large oiled linen cape; ladies wore 
" camblets," and sometimes carried "quintasols" — a small article 
something like a parasol, imported from India. They were of 
oiled muslin in various colors. When umbrellas were first used 
as a protection from the sun, great ridicule was made of the idea. 
Ladies, as a preservative of their complexion, sometimes wore 
black velvet masks in winter and green ones in the summer, keep- 
ing them on by means of a silver mouthpiece. Veils were un- 
known, except in crape as a badge of mourning. 

Woman's extravagance was then, as it is now, a juicy topic for 
grumblers, and an English traveler relates how the Boston ladies 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 123 

" indulge every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode, 
and neglect the affairs of their families with as good grace as the 
finest ladies in London." The practical satirists of the day had 
their own little jokes, and drove out some of the most offensive 
fashions by novel expedients. The loose dress called a trollopce 
being distasteful to them, they dressed the wife of the public hang- 
man of Philadelphia in one, and she paraded the streets in full cos- 
tume, mincing and strutting to the sound of burlesque music. 
Trollopees straightway became obsolete. The long red cloaks 
were quickly stripped from the shoulders of the ladies of the same 
city after a depraved female criminal had been hung, clothed in a 
scarlet mantle of the most approved style. The "tower" head- 
dress, which had been petted to a ridiculous extreme, was effec- 
tually caricatured by a tall man, dressed in the latest feminine 
mode, and wearing a " tower " of colossal proportions, who made 
the tour of the city streets, preceded by a drum. No one but the 
dear creatures themselves guessed how much torture our great- 
grandmothers endured in the building up of a proper coiffure. In 
towns where there were a limited number of hair-dressers, and a 
grand party was in contemplation, it was no uncommon occur- 
rence for ladies to have their hair frizzed and curled — an opera- 
tion which required three or four hours in the hands of a skillful 
barber — the day before, and then to sit up all night to prevent its 
derangement ! It was a great relief when cushions and arti- 
ficial curled work came in, which could be sent out to the barber's- 
block and save the agony of personal attendance. The fashion- 
able caps a hundred years ago were the " Queen's Nightcap," the 
style always worn by Mrs. Washington, and the " cushion head- 
dress," made of gauze stiffened out in cylindrical form with white 
spiral wire, and having a border called the " balcony." A cap 
was indispensable in those days. Bare heads were quite out of 
character. Even the boys wore wigs like their fathers, and little 
girls caps like their mothers. The " musk-melon bonnet " had the 
crown shirred with whalebone stiflfeners, and was in vogue just 
before the Revolution. It was followed by the " whalebone bon- 
net," which was shirred only in front. Bonnets were bonnets in 
those days, veritable sun umbrellas, tied down at the chin. The 
" calash " was always made of green silk, so arranged that, when 
the wearer desired, it could be made to fall back on the neck and 
shoulders in folds like the cover of a buggy. To keep it up over 
the head, it was drawn by a cord held in the hand of the wearer. 



124 COLONIAL LIFE. 

A modification of this fashion has been revived once or twice 
during the last half century. Satin, a favorite material for even- 
ing robes, was admirably suited to the stately manners of the gen- 
tlewomen of the day. Brocades and mantuas also shared the 
public favor. At one time gowns were worn without fronts, dis- 
playing a finely-quilted Marseilles, silk or satin petticoat, and a 
worked stomacher on the waist. Chintz for summer, and some 
sort of worsted for winter, were worn at home, and " thought 
dress enough for common days" in the best society. Kerchiefs 
and aprons were as necessary as caps, and ranged in material 
from the finest of linen cambric, gauze, and taffeta, monopolized 
by the rich gentry, to the coarsest of checks, homespun, and tow, 
worn by the mass of the people. Before the invention of the spin- 
ning-jenny in 1767, pure cotton home fabrics were unknown, the 
homespun threads being too irregular to be of use except as a 
woof, and the supply being also very limited. The first cotton 
exported from the United States to England was sent in 1785, the 
ship taking but one bag. Hose were made of thread or silk in 
summer, and fine or coarse worsted in winter. Short gowns and 
long gowns are familiar names in our grandmothers' wardrobes, 
from the common linsey-woolseys to the stiff large-flowered bro- 
cades and satins, which we still love to produce as relics from 
old-fashioned chests which smell of camphor and cedar. The 
names of those old stuffs, of calamanco and durant and groset, of 
russet and wilton and tabby, of tandem and gulix and huckaback, 
sound strangely now to the young American girl, who would be 
astonished to find that some of them were at least first cousins to 
fabrics which, somewhat refined, shine in the present market under 
high-sounding French titles. Somewhat less intelligible still is 
the following list of articles, dress materials, etc., taken from a 
Philadelphia advertisement of 1745 : " Quilted humhums, turket- 
tees, grassetts, single allopeens, allibanies, florettas, dickmansoy, 
cushloes, chuckloes, cuttanees, crimson dannador, chained soo- 
soos, lemonees, barragons, byrampauts, naffermamy, and saxling- 
ham " ! 

Although the majority of houses were still humbly and spar- 
ingly furnished, yet comforts had greatly increased during the 
growing prosperity of the colonies, and a few really elegant homes 
were found in every city of importance, belonging mostly to the 
traveled gentry, whose property had come by descent. About 
the close of colonial times we hear of one house in Boston which 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 



125 




ANCIENT CHAIR. 

(Brought over in the Mayflower.) 



had cost three thousand pounds, and of another whose furni- 
ture was worth one thousand pounds. Large mirrors, marble 
tables, and Turkey carpets figured in 
fine stone mansions. Elaborate carv- 
ings were seen on massive balustrades 
in spacious halls, and the parlor walls 
were sometimes adorned with painted 
leather hangings. Deep paneled wain- 
scots and carved cornices and mantles 
added to the solid elegance of these 
handsome dwellings. Crimson leather 
furnished a dignified upholstery to the 
straight high-backed mahogany chairs 
and sofas, while heavy damask curtains 
steadied the glitter from ponderous 
brass andirons and brass clock. There 
were a few private libraries of consid- 
erable size, but books were not plenti- 
ful, though well-selected and read with 
care. People bought an outfit of books as of furniture, expect- 
ing it to last a lifetime. Fielding, the father of English novelists, 
supplied the little that was desired of racy fiction. Smollett 
had just translated Gil Bias, and that, with the ever-delight- 
ful Don Quixote, kept up their sense of humor. The Vicar 
of Wakefield, newly out, was read till young and old had it 
almost by heart. Addison's Spectator and Johnson's Rambler 
were models for correct style. Shakespeare and Milton and Young 
were studied until their expressions were as familiar as thought ; 
while a careful perusal of Blackstone's Commentaries and Mon- 
tesquieu's Spirit of Laws was necessary to every gentleman who 
sought to be well-read. Everything, both in books and in furni- 
ture, was solid. Shams had not yet made their advent, and there 
were no veneered woods, no silver-plated wares. What would 
those straightforward, substantial New Englanders have thought 
of our day of dime novels and of shoddy ? 

But it was in the country towns, where the prim Puritan ele- 
ment had not been softened by recent English innovations, that 
one saw real New England life. White sanded floors, with 
unpainted pine settles, scoured to the last degree of whiteness ; 
maple, rush-bottomed chairs set squarely back against the white- 
washed walls; lofty clock-cases reaching to the ceiling; glass- 



126 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



doored corner closets wherein the china and silver — family treas- 
ures — were arranged at pure right angles ; high chests of drawers 
filled with stores of household linen, packed squarely in ; — every- 
where an immutable regularity, angularity, and precision. Upon 
the walls, the little looking-glasses in two plates were framed with 
scalloped wood, and black mouldings set off the quaint, stiff 
bunches of flowers painted on glass or worked on satin — testimo- 
nies to fashionable accomplishment. Shining brass and copper 
candlesticks, ready to receive the tallow candles which had been 
snugly packed from the last dipping, were turned up on their 
large round base upon the wooden shelf. Fixed rules governed 
the arrangement of each article of furniture, and were as consci- 
entiously observed as were those which decided the proprieties 
of manner. Everything was stiff, uncompromising, and sedate — 
everything, except the dancing flames in the open fireplaces 
which laughed at their own incongruous, frolicking reflections — 
the one freedom amid perpetual restraint. In the chambers, high, 
four-posted bedsteads kept guard over the same immaculate 
order. Their hangings and valances in the handsomest houses 
were sometimes of silk in summer and heavy damask in winter. 
More commonly, however, they were of snowy dimity, or of blue 

and white stuff like the 
coverlets. Sheets of home- 
spun, blankets of home- 
made flannel, quilts of 
various hues — marvels 
of industry, and narrow, 
downy pillows above the 
soft bolster, completed the 
equipments. The thrift of 
the New England house- 
wife reveled in crowded 
drawers of bed and table 
linen, which she worked 
early and late to produce. 
" She layeth her hands to 
the spindle and her hands 
hold the distaff" was an 
emphatic record of her daily life. The two wheels, one small 
and worked by the foot for spinning linen thread, and the other 
large and turned by the hand for woolen yarn, were honored articles 




THE WOOLEN SI'INNING-WHEEL. 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 127 

fn every household. No less were her kitchen and larder a pride. 
The shining lines of pewter along the ample dresser, the painfully 
scoured floor and white pine furniture, the rows of jams and mar- 
malades, the strings of dried pumpkin and apples, the casks and 
bottles of cider, metheglin, and anise-seed cordial, all attested her 
careful forethought. In many houses a china or silver bowl of 
rum punch stood in the hall, a hospitable invitation to every guest, 
who all drank from the same dish. Flip and toddy were com- 
mon drinks, and a moderate use of the flowing bowl seems tc 
have been almost universal. But woe to the man who overstepped 
the subtle line which divides the drinker from the drunkard 
His name, posted in every alehouse — the keepers of which then- 
selves were required to be of " good character " and " property 
holders " — shut him out forever from further lawful tippling 
Just before the Revolution, a unique punishment was in vogue 
in New York for drunkards. It consisted of " three quarts of 
warm water and salt enough to operate as an emetic, with a por- 
tion of lamp oil to act as a purge." In 1772, a negro, found drunk 
and sent to Bridewell, died after enduring his sentence. 

If one were to tell all the curious local customs which pre- 
vailed here and there over the colonies, it would read spicily 
enough. Here is a choice dish : " The height of the fashion was 
to put into the kettle of chocolate several links of sausages, and, 
after boiling all together, to serve the guests with a bowl of 
chocolate and sausage. The latter was cut up, and the mess 
eaten with a spoon." When tea first came in use, it was boiled in 
an iron kettle and strained ; the leaves were well buttered, and the 
clear liquid was drunk " to wash down the greens." A dish 
called wJiistle-bclly-vengcancc was made by simmering the sour 
household brewed beer in a brass kettle, with crumbled crusts of 
brown bread, adding a little molasses. It was served hot. 

Yet, without carpets, gas, or other " modern improvements," 
taking their long journeys over rough roads in lumbering coaches 
or on horse, cooking by open fireplaces, and spinning and weaving 
all needful articles for use or wear by slow hand labor, our pre- 
Revolutionary fathers and mothers extracted, doubtless, quite 
as much comfort from life as their more luxurious descendants. 
The old-time physician did not neglect his patients though he 
always made his calls on foot, and never ventured to charge more 
than two shillings for each visit ; while fair ladies bustled through 
the muddy streets in pattens and galoshes, and deemed it no 



128 COLONIAL LIFE. 

great hardship to sit out a round hour sermon with only the little 
tin or wooden foot-stove under their feet to temper the winter 
chill of the meeting-house which had never known a fire. When 
the frosts lay heavy on lake and river, came the festivities of 
skating, and the great ox was roasted on the thick-ribbed ice. 
With spring came May-day, still kept up in many parts with true 
Old England merriment. For ball and party invitations, since 
blank cards were yet unknown, the back of a common playing- 
card served as well as anything else ; why not ? No opportunity 
for promiscuous flirting or coquetry then, when a partner was 
engaged for the whole evening, each couple being expected to 
drink tea together on the following afternoon. 

We turn again to the sunny South, seeking repose in a Vir- 
ginia planter's luxurious home. We have seen how these spacious 
mansions were situated, dotting at long intervals the bank of 
some lovely river. Free, generous, a prince in hospitality, the 
southern gentleman kept open-house to all respectable strangers 
who might seek food or lodging. " The doors of citizens," says a 
southern writer, " are opened to all decent travelers and shut 
against none. Innkeepers complain that this is carried to such an 
extent that their business is scarcely worth following. The 
abundance of provisions on plantations renders the exercise of 
this virtue not inconvenient, and the avidity of country people 
for hearing news makes them rather seek than shun the calls of 
strangers. The State may be traveled over with very little 
expense by persons furnished with letters of introduction, or even 
without them by calling at the plantations of private gentlemen 
on or near the roads." It was a delightful termination to a day 
of weary journeying when the bridle was loosed before one 
of these inviting country homes and the gentlemanly host 
uttered his courteous welcome. Over the low verandas and 
balconies climbed, in wanton luxuriance, the yellow jasmine, sweet 
honeysuckle, or the trumpet flower ; the soft air was fragrant 
with the breath of scented shrubs which sprang from warm, moist 
earth ; everywhere was an atmosphere of delicious languor. 
Within the dwelling was the same air of repose. The music of 
the harpsichord was oftener heard than the hum of the spinning- 
wheel, though the southern matron had, too, her own peculiar 
round of duties. Black slaves performed all the domestic labors, 
it is true ; but the heart of the kind mistress was mindful of the 
wants of her large and, in many respects, dependent household, 



LATER COLONIAL TIMES. 1 29 

in which she found sufficient employ. Her articles of luxury and 
many of her comforts were brought direct from England. Ships 
from Liverpool sailed up the river and delivered at the private 
wharf of the wealthy planter the goods of fashionable attire or 
household elegance which he had ordered from England, receiv- 
ing in return the tobacco sowed, gathered, and packed by the 
negroes on the plantation. Along the Potomac many of the plant- 
ers had beautiful barges imported from England, which were rowed 
by negroes in uniform. When they traveled on horseback, they 
were attended by their black servants in livery. The ladies often 
took their airing in a chariot and four, with liveried black postil- 
lions. A short distance from the family residence stood the kit- 
chen, which, like the laundry, was always separate from the 
mansion. From its large, open fireplace, presided over by some 
ancient Dinah or Chloe in gorgeous red or yellow turban, came 
savory dishes of sweet bacon, wild-fowl, or game. Hot biscuit 
were served at every meal, and no breakfast was complete with- 
out a plate of delicious " hoe-cakes " — cakes made of Indian meal 
and baked before the fire, which are as naturally associated with 
the southern table as pumpkin-pies with the New England board 
or doughnuts with the Dutch. Conveniently retired, might be 
found the negro quarters ; a cluster of wooden cabins each with 
its own little garden and poultry yard, and with swarms of 
black babies, pickaninnies, gambolling in the sunshine. The south- 
ern planter, like the roving Merovingian kings of France, had 
artificers of all kinds in his retinue of servants : tailors, shoe- 
makers, carpenters, smiths, and so on through all the needful 
trade? of ordinary life. There were ample stables for the blooded 
horses, and kennels for the hounds, for the chase was a favorite 
diversion. Washington was passionately fond of it, and the 
names of his fox -hounds — Vulcan, Singer, Sweetlips, Music, 
Truelove, etc. — were carefully registered in his household books, 
the character of some of them giving us a faint hint of an under- 
current of sentiment, which in his grave dignity he seldom 
revealed. On his beautiful Mount Vernon estate, that wonderful 
man, as careful a proprietor as he was brave general and accom- 
plished gentleman, so watched over his exports that they became 
noted as always reliable, and it was said that any barrel of flour 
bearing his brand passed into West India ports without inspec- 
tion. 

Washington's early friend and patron, Lord Thomas Fairfax, 

9 



130 



COLONIAL LIFE. 



possessed one of the largest estates in America. His mansion house, 
called Greenway Court, in the Shenandoah Valley, was the scene 
of many brilliant festivities. He was an ardent loyalist, and when 
he heard of the surrender of Cornwallis, it is related that he said 
to his servant, " Come, Joe, carry me to bed, for it is high time for 
me to die." Nor did he long survive that event. His immense 
lands, valued at ninety-eight thousand pounds, were confiscated to 
the Union. They embraced five million two hundred and eighty- 
two thousand acres, including everything between the Potomac 
and the Rappahannock. When we read of one person enjoying 
the title-claim to an extent of territory covering all the present 
counties of Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, Westmore- 
land, Stafford, King George, Prince William, Fairfax, Loudon, 
Fauquier, Culpepper, Clarke, Madison, Page, Shenandoah, Hardy, 
Hampshire, Morgan, Berkeley, Jefferson, and Frederick — twenty- 
one in all — we do not wonder that in those times common people 
made bitter complaint that all Virginia was in the hands of a few 
owners. 




FIELD-SPORTS OF THE SOUTH — FOX-HUNTING. 



CHAPTER I. 

ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. 













HE scattered settlements along 
the Atlantic grew into a nation 
as naturally as infancy matures 
into manhood. The whole his- 
tory of the colonies pointed an 
index hand to Lexington and 
Bunker Hill. The Declaration of Independence was but the 
normal outgrowth of the contract signed by the Pilgrims in Cape 
Cod Harbor a little over a century and a half before. The so- 
called " Causes of the Revolution " only served to develop that 
which had its root in the very nature of things. This country 
was settled by men who fled from persecution at home, and 
America to them meant liberty above all things else. Free- 
dom was their birthright, and they had studied its principles 
thoroughly. To provoke such men by injustice, was to. shake 
rudely every tie which bound them to the mother country. Tuf" 
this England did, wantonly and continually. 



134 ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. [1750. 

The royal governors often carried matters with a high hand. 
There were attempts made to take away the charters of Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. There were sugges- 
tions of creating a provincial peerage and of giving the Estab- 
lished Church the precedence in all the colonies. In the army, a 
"regular" captain outranked a "provincial" colonel. Every 
effort was made to keep the colonies dependent, and to favor the 
British manufacturer and merchant. Even Pitt, the friend of 
America, asserted that the colonists had " no right to manufac- 
ture a nail for a horse-shoe." Commerce and manufactures were 
bound hand and foot. In 1750, the Americans were forbidden to 
send pig-iron to England and to make steel or bar iron for home 
use. Iron-works were declared " common nuisances." The expor- 
tation of hats from one colony to another was prohibited, and no 
hatter was allowed to have more than two apprentices at one 
time, as the colonists, if let alone, " would supply all the world 
with hats." The importation of sugar, rum and molasses was bur- 
dened with exorbitant duties ; and the Carolinians were forbidden 
to cut down the pine-trees of their vast forests, in order to con- 
vert the wood into staves, or the juice into turpentine and tar, for 
commercial purposes. England, says Sabine, forbade the use of 
waterfalls, the erection of machinery, looms and spindles, and 
the working of wood and iron ; set the king's broad arrow upon 
trees in the forest; shut out markets for boards and fish; seized 
sugar and molasses, and the vessels in which they were carried ; 
required an American vessel wrecked on the Irish coast to first 
send its goods destined for an Irish market to England, and then 
have them brought back to Ireland in an English vessel ; and at- 
tempted to define the limitless ocean to be but a narrow pathway 
to such lands as bore the British flag. Such odious laws drove 
men to their violation. It was the only hope of trade. Smug- 
gling became so common that it is said of the one and a half 
million dollars worth of tea used annually in the colonies, 
scarcely any had paid duty. Not one chest out of five hundred 
landed in Boston was regularly entered. A considerable part of 
Hancock's fortune inherited from his uncle was made by smug- 
gling tea in molasses hogsheads ; and at the breaking out of the 
Revolution, the crown had sued Hancock himself to recover 
penalties for violations of revenue laws to the amount of half a 
million dollars. 

The home government had incurred heavy expenses during 



1761.] 



WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. 



135 



the old French and Indian war. George III. was now king. 
Pitt, who was almost idolized in America, was dismissed, and the 
monarch, following incompetent ministers like Bute, Grenville, 
and Townshend, stupidly and wantonly drove on the colonists to 
revolt. It was determined to make 
the rich and thriving young colo- 
nies contribute to the payment 
of the debt. The colonists were 
not represented in parliament, and 
they declared the principle that 
" Taxation without represen- 
tation IS TYRANNY." 

Step by step the struggle now 
went on. In 1761, strict orders 
were received 
by the revenue 
officers to en- 
force the obnox- 
ious laws against 
trade. Warrants, 
or writs of assist- 
ance, as they 
were called, were 
issued, authoriz- 
ing these per- 
sons to search for 

smuggled goods. With such a pretext, any petty custom-house 
official could ransack a man's house or store at his pleasure. The 
colonists held the Englishman's maxim, that " every man's house 
is his castle." The royal collectors were accordingly resisted 
from one end of the country to the other. At the General Court 
in Boston, James Otis, without fear or fee, eloquently withstood 
the issuing of such warrants. " To my dying day," said he, " I will 
oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all 
such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the 
other." " Then and there," wrote John Adams, " the trumpet of 
the Revolution was sounded." 

From that time, in his indignation, Adams could "never read 
the acts of trade without a curse." In 1764, parliament distinctly 
declared its " right to tax America." Colony after colony entered 
its solemn protest; but in vain. In 1765, the Stamp Act was 




WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 



m6 



ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. 



[1765. 



passed. This ordered that no legal document was valid unless it 
bore a British stamp costing from three pence to six pounds ; that 
every newspaper and pamphlet should bear a stamp worth from a 
halfpenny to four pence ; and that each advertisement should pay 
a duty of two shillings. 

The ministers were authorized to send troops to America, and, 
by a clause in the Mutiny Act, it was ordered that the colonists 
should provide the soldiers 
with quarters and necessary 
supplies. America was not 
only to be taxed but to be 
made to house and feed its 
oppressors. The assembly of 




Virginia was in session when 
these obnoxious laws were an- 
nounced. Patrick Henry, a 
young lawyer, the youngest 
member of the house, quickly 
drew upon the blank leaf of an 
old law-book a series of resolutions denying the right of parlia- 
ment to tax America. He supported these in a strain of burning 
patriotism, declaring, " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Crorn- 



PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY. 



1765.] THE MUTINY ACT. 1 37 

well, and George III." — here pausing till the cry of "Treason! 
Treason !" from several parts of the house had subsided, he delib- 
erately added — "may profit by their examples. If this be trea- 
son, make the moat of it." " The sun of liberty is set," wrote 
Franklin ; " the Americans must light the lamps of industry and 
economy." " Be assured," was the reply of Colonel Thomson, 
" we shall light lamps of a very different character." 

The tide of opposition everywhere ran high, and even some- 
times overflowed the barriers of law and order. The houses of 
British officials were mobbed. The opponents of the tax met on 
Boston Common under a large elm, famous as the " liberty tree." 
Associations were formed which took the name of " Sons of 
Liberty," a phrase used by Colonel Barre in a powerful speech, 
now familiar to every school-boy, delivered in parliament in 
defence of the colonies. At Portsmouth, N. H., a coffin inscribed 
" Liberty, aged CXLV years," was borne to an open grave. 
With muffled drums and solemn tread, the procession moved from 
the State House. Minute-guns were fired till the grave was 
reached, when a funeral oration was pronounced and the coffin 
lowered. Suddenly it was proclaimed that there were signs of 
life. The coffin was raised. A new inscription, " Liberty 
Revived," was appended. Bells rung, trumpets sounded, men 
shouted, and a jubilee ensued. Stamps were everywhere seized, 
and the agents were forced to resign. The people agreed not to 
use any article of British manufacture. Trade with England 
almost ceased. The women entered heartily into the struggle, 
and the newspapers of the day are full of their patriotic doings. 
They formed associations called " Daughters of Liberty," and 
spun and wove with renewed vigor, determined to prove them- 
selves independent of the mother-country. " Within eighteen 
months," wrote a gentleman at Newport, Rhode Island, " four 
hundred and eighty-seven yards of cloth and thirty-six pairs of 
stockings have been spun and knit in the family of James Nixon 
of this town." In Newport and Boston the women, at their tea- 
drinkings, used, instead of imported tea, the dried leaves of the 
raspberry, which they called Hyperion. The feeling spread to 
every condition of life. The very children in the streets caught 
up the cry, " Liberty and property forever ! No stamps." 

In North Carolina John Ashe, speaker of the Assembly, declared 
to Governor Tryon, " This law will be resisted to blood and 
to death." When the sloop-of-war Diligence anchored in Cape 



I3« 



ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. 



[1765. 



Fear harbor with a supply of stamped 
paper for the use of the colony, the 
crowd, headed by Colonels Ashe 
and Waddell, prohibited the terri- 
fied captain from land- 
ing his cargo. Thence 
they marched to the 
governor's palace at 
Wilmington and 
threatened to burn it 
over his head unless 
he gave up the stamp- 
master, whom they 
forced to swear not to 
discharge the duties 
of his office. 

Massachusetts sug- 
gested a convention 
to be held at New 
York in October. The 
call was en- 
dorsed by 
South Car- 
olina, and 
delegates 
met from 




nine colonies. 
They proposed 
a declaration of 
rights, and me- 
morials to thr 
king and parlia- 
ment. The first 
of November, the 
time appointed for 
the law to go into 
effect, was ob- 
served as a day of mourning. Bells 
were tolled, flags were raised at half- 
mast, and business was suspended. 
Samuel and John Adams, Patrick 






BENJAMIM FKANKLIN. 



1766.] REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. 1 39 

Henry, and James Otis aroused the people over the whole land 
by their stirring and patriotic speeches. 

In February, 1766, Benjamin Franklin, then in England as 
agent for Pennsylvania, was called before the bar of the House 
of Commons and questioned concerning the condition of the 
colonies. His firm and decisive answers greatly impressed the 
officers of the crown. The English government, finding that the 
Stamp Act could not be executed, except by force of arms, at last 
repealed it. The news was received in America with transports 
of joy. Addresses of thanks were voted to the king and distin- 
guished statesmen, such as Camden, Pitt, and Barre. At Boston, 
Faneuil Hall was adorned with full-length pictures of the latter 
two friends of America. The debtors were released from jail, and 
what with fireworks, public entertainments, music, and parades, 
the day was one of the happiest ever seen. The " home feeling " 
toward England was restored and trade resumed. 

But the cloud soon settled again. The government still 
declared its right to inflict taxation on the colonies. Duties were 
imposed on tea, glass, paper, etc., and a Board of Trade was 
established at Boston, to act independently of the colonial assem- 
blies. The press and the pulpit at once sounded the alarm. The 
non-importation agreement was revived with greater stringency. 
The New York assembly, refusing to quarter English troops at 
the colonial expense, was suspended from all legislative acts. 
The Massachusetts assembly having sent a circular to the other 
colonies urging a union for redress of grievances, parliament, 
in the name of the king, ordered it to rescind its action. It 
almost unanimously refused. In the meantime the assemblies of 
nearly all the colonies had declared that parliament had no right 
to tax them without their consent. Flereupon they were warned 
not to imitate the disobedient conduct of Massachusetts. 

New events constantly occurred to keep up the excitement. 
The commissioners of customs seized a sloop laden with wine, 
because the owner, John Hancock, refused to pay duty upon it ; 
but the mob falling upon them, they were glad to take refuge in 
Castle William. Boston being considered the hotbed of the 
rebellion, General Gage ordered thither two regiments of troops. 
They entered on a quiet Sunday morning, and marched as 
through a conquered city, with drums beating and flags flying. 
All the prejudices of a peaceful, Sabbath-loving, liberty-sworn 
people were thus aroused. Quarters being refused, the soldiers 



140 



ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. 



[1770. 



took possession of the State House. The Common was soon 
covered with tents. Cannon were planted, sentries posted, and 
citizens challenged ; while the harbor was occupied by a fleet of 
vessels. 

An obsolete law of the time of Henry VIII. was revived, and 
the governor of Massachusetts ordered to send the persons con- 
cerned in the late disturbance to England for trial. This high- 
handed measure was bitterly opposed by a minority in the House 
of Commons, Burke exclaiming, " Can you not trust the juries 
of that country ? If you have not a party among two millions 
of people, you must either change your plans of government 
or renounce the colonies forever." 

The presence of the soldiers in Boston was a constant aggra- 
vation, and the people did their utmost to render their stay 
uncomfortable. The city committee persuaded the farmers to 
sell them nothing but the provisions necessary for their existence ; 
straw, timber, boards, and other articles were purposely withheld 
from their market. Articles purchased by the agents of govern- 
ment encountered mysterious accidents ; straw took fire and 
burned ; vessels with bricks sunk ; wood-carts overturned, and, 
in short, the vexations of life were multiplied upon them. 

Frequent quarrels took place between the people and the 
"red-coats." One day (March 5, 1770) a crowd of men and boys, 
maddened by their presence, insulted the city guard. A fight 
ensued. Several citizens were wounded and three killed. The 

bells were rung. The country people 
rushed in to the help of the city. Quiet 
was with difficulty restored. But the 
snow in King Street was purple, and 
" that stain, though it melted away in 
the next day's sun, was never forgot- 
ten nor forgiven." In the morning 
Faneuil Hall was filled with an indig- 
nant crowd. The immediate removal 
of the troops was demanded. The 
government was forced to yield, and 
to order the soldiers out of the city to 
Castle William. The citizens slain in 
the brawl were buried with solemn pageantry, and apotheosized 
as the first martyrs to liberty. The story of the " Boston Mas- 
sacre," as it was called, became a tale of horror. The fact that 




CK\.W»^V»Sa>3fc 



FANEUIL HALL. 



1771.] THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 141 

the soldiers fired in self-defence against an excited mob was 
ignored, and the hate of foreign domination was intensified by 
details of what was spread as an unprovoked assault upon quiet 
and defenceless citizens. 

The guard which had fired on the mob were tried for murder. 
The result was a beautiful triumph of law and order over popular 
prejudice. The defence was conducted by John Adams and 
James Otis. In spite of the universal agitation, all were acquitted 
except two, who were convicted of manslaughter only. These 
were branded in the hand in open court and discharged. This 
fair and honorable trial exhibited the temper of the people and 
the uselessness of reviving an ancient statute in order to secure 
justice. 

In North Carolina the insolence shown in the notorious 
embezzlements of the royal officers aroused open rebellion. The 
governor, who was himself squandering the funds in building a 
palace, stated in an official paper that the " sheriffs had purloined 
more than half the public moneys." In this province the revenue 
was raised by a poll-tax, so that the richest merchant paid no 
more than the poorest laborer. The officers often levied four 
times the lawful tax. The courts refused the distressed people 
their rights. Money was scarce ; wheat brought only one shilling 
per bushel, and that after being hauled fifty or a hundred miles to 
market. Under such circumstances the taxes became simply 
unendurable. At last, as the only means of obtaining justice, an 
association of regulators was formed for the avowed purpose of 
redressing the grievances of the country. Governor Tryon, 
however, marched against them, defeated them at Alamance 
Creek (May 16, 1771), and left three hundred of their number 
dead on the field. Six were afterward hanged. The governor 
and his satellites took possession of such of their estates as they 
desired. Not a few of the hardy backwoodsmen fled to the 
wilderness and obtained lands of the Cherokees, where they laic 
the foundation of the State of Tennessee. The regulators were 
subdued, though a bitter hatred of British rule was engendered. 

In 1772, the Gaspee, a British revenue schooner, while chasing 
a vessel, ran aground. The opportunity was too good to be lost. 
That night a party from Providence boarded and set her on fire. 

The English government was greatly alarmed by the steady 
determination evinced by the colonies. The merchants, whose 
goods lay unsold in their warehouses, offered to pay the govern- 



142 



ALIEiNTATION OF THE COLONIES. 



[1773. 




THE REGULATORS THREATENING GOVERNOR TRYON. 



ment the entire amount expected to be realized from the duties. 
Finally, all were rescinded except that on tea, which was left 
merely to maintain the right of taxation. With a curious mis- 
apprehension of the American spirit, an arrangement was made 
with the India Company whereby this could be furnished at a 
cheaper rate in America than in England. The subterfuge only 
exasperated the patriots. They were fighting for a great princi- 
ple, not against a paltry tax. 

At Charleston the tea was stored in damp cellars, where it 
soon spoiled. The tea-ships at New York and Philadelphia were 
sent home. The British authorities at Boston refused to let the 
vessels loaded with tea return. Upon this, an immense public 
meeting was held at Faneuil Hall. Speeches were made by 
Quincy, Adams and others. It was resolved that the tea should 
never be landed. That evening (December 16, 1773), memorable 
in American history, a party of men disguised as Indians boarded 
the vessels and emptied three hundred and forty-two chests of 
tea into the water. The dock was crowded with people who 
looked on with joy. When the work was done they quietly 
dispersed. As the party passed by a house where Admiral 
Montague was visiting, he raised a window and called out, 
" Well, boys, you've had a fine night for your Indian caper. But, 
remember, you've got to pay the fiddler yet." " Oh, never 
mind," replied one of the leaders, " never mind, squire ! Just 
come out here, if you please, and we'll settle the bill in two 
minutes." But the Admiral declined to come out ; and to " settle 
the bill " took seven years of bloody war, thousands of lives, and 
millions of money. 



1774.] MEETING OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 143 

The issue was now fairly made. " The king, his ministers, 
parliament, and all Great Britain set themselves to subdue this 
one stubborn little town on the sterile coast of Massachusetts Bay." 
The odds were terrible. But in resolute little Boston there were 
a town hall, free schools, free presses, and free pulpits. There 
was a government of the people, for the people, and by the 
people ; there were heroes who knew the right and dared main- 
tain it ; there were praying men, zealous ministers, and conscien- 
tious statesmen. God smiled on his own, and that town was safe. 

The English government at once adopted retaliatory measures. 
General Gage was appointed governor of Massachusetts, with 
orders to enforce new and more coercive decrees, virtually 
abrogating the charter. The port of Boston was closed by act 
of parliament. Great distress was thus produced in the city, but 
from every side came expressions of sympathy and substantial 
aid. The cause of Boston was made the common cause of the 
country. The merchants of Marblehead and Salem, refusing to 
profit by the ruin of their rivals, offered the use of their wharves to 
the Boston merchants. Wyndham, Conn., donated a flock of two 
hundred and fifty sheep. Schoharie, New York, forwarded 
five hundred and fifty bushels of wheat. The people of Georgia 
sent their sympathies from the far south, accompanied by sixty- 
three barrels of rice and seven hundred and twenty dollars in 
specie. 

The burgesses of Virginia, then in session at the old capitol 
in Williamsburg, learning the news of the Boston Port Bill, ap- 
pointed a fast clay on June 1st, when it was to go into effect. 
The governor immediately dismissed the refractory assembly, as 
a schoolmaster would a class of unruly boys, — yet it contained 
such men as Henry, Jefferson, Lee, Pendleton, and Nicholas. 
Washington notes in his diary that he observed that day as a 
rigid fast, and attended services at church. George Mason 
charged his children to go thither clad in mourning. The bur- 
gesses, after their dissolution, immediately repaired en masse to 
the famous "Apollo Room" of the Old Raleigh Tavern— Vir- 
ginia's Faneuil Hall — less than one hundred paces from the 
capitol. Here they declared unanimously that the attack on 
Massachusetts was one upon all the colonies, and must be re- 
sisted by their united wisdom. 

Committees of correspondence were now appointed by the 
various colonies. This idea, acted upon first by the Sons of Lib- 



144 



ALIENATION OF THE COLONIES. 



[1774 




CARPENTER S HALL. 



erty in New York city, became a powerful political engine in 
combining the colonies against England. A curious device, rep- 
resenting the colonies as parts of a 
snake, with the significant motto, 
"Join or die," was extensively 
adopted. At the suggestion of 
influential men and meetings in 
all parts of the country, delegates 
were chosen to a general congress. 
The first Continental Congress 
assembled at Carpenter's Hall, 
Philadelphia, September 5, 1774. 
Every colony but Georgia was 
represented. The venerable Pey- 
ton Randolph was chosen presi- 
dent. Fifty-three delegates were 
present — among them such men as 
Samuel and John Adams of Mas- 
sachusetts ; Hopkins of Rhode Island ; Sherman and Deane of 
Connecticut; Livingston and Jay of New York; Lee, Henry, 
Randolph, and Washington of Virginia ; Rutledge and Gadsden 
of South Carolina. The first meeting, we are told, was fearfully 
solemn. All felt the momentous responsibility of the occasion. 
At last the silence was broken by the magic eloquence of Patrick 
Henry. He was followed by Richard Henry Lee. It was 
resolved that each session should open with prayer — Samuel 
Adams, though a Congregationalist, moving that Rev. J. Duch6, 
rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, should be invited to 
officiate. 

Morning came. News had arrived of a bloody attack on 
Boston by the British troops. The regular psalm for that day 
(seventh) seemed providentially ordered. The chaplain read : 
" Plead thou my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me, 
and fight thou against them that fight against me. Lay hand 
upon the shield and buckler, and stand up to help me. Bring 
forth the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute 
" Lord, how long wilt thou look upon this? O deliver my 



me. 



soul from the calamities which they bring on me." " Awake and 
stand up to judge my quarrel. Avenge thou my cause, my God 
and my Lord. Judge me, O Lord, my God, according to thy 
righteousness ; and let them not triumph over me." After this, 



1774.] EXCITEMENT OF THE PEOPLE. I45 

the chaplain unexpectedly broke out into an extempore prayer so 
full of zeal and fervor, for Congress, the country, and especially 
for Boston, that the hearts of all were thrilled and comforted. 

As yet few members had any idea of independence. Congress, 
however, voted, that obedience was not due to any of the recent 
acts of parliament, and sustained Massachusetts in her resistance. 
It issued a protest against standing armies being kept in the 
colonies without consent of the people, and agreed to hold no 
intercourse with Great Britain, though expressing at the same 
~ime the most devoted loyalty to the king. It also agreed not to 
import or purchase slaves after the first of December ensuing. 

The country heaved like an ocean in a storm. Party lines 
were now sharply drawn. Those opposed to the action of the 
British government were termed Whigs, and those supporting it 
Tories. Everywhere were repeated the thrilling words of 
Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses, " I know not 
what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give 
me death." Companies of soldiers, termed " minute-men," were 
formed. To be a private in one of these was an honor. Balls 
were cast, cartridges made, and military evolutions learned. 
Nothing was heard, says Botta, but the din of arms and the 
sound of fife and drums. Gage, being alarmed, fortified Boston 
Neck, and seized the powder in the magazine at Charlestown. 
A rumor having been circulated that the British ships were 
firing on Boston, in two days thirty thousand minute-men were 
on their way to the city. A spark only was needed to kindle 
the slumbering hatred into the flames of war. 




ENGLAND FORCING TEA DOWN THE THROAT OF AMERICA. 

(From a caricature of the time.) 



CHAPTER II. 

0<PEJfIMG OF THE WAfe. 




ENERAL GAGE, learning that 
the patriots were collecting 
stores and ammunition at Con- 
cord, resolved to seize them. 
On April 1 8th, about eleven 
o'clock in the evening, a body 
of eight hundred regulars, under 
the command of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Smith and Major Pit- 
cairn, secretly left Boston, and 
near midnight took the road 
for Concord. The moon shone 
brightly from the clear sky, and 
they moved on rapidly. The Boston leaders, however, were on 
the alert. From the tower of the old North Church streamed a 
beacon light ; while Paul Revere and William Dawes, escaping 
the guard, were already far ahead announcing their coming. 
There was 

" A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet." 

Soon the distant ringing of bells and firing of guns told the 
troops that the alarm was spreading. When they reached Lex- 
ington at dawn, they found a small company of minute-men 
gathering on the village green. Riding up, Pitcairn shouted, 
" Disperse, you rebels ! Lay down your arms ! " " Too few to 
resist, too brave to fly," they hesitated. Discharging his pistol, he 
cried aloud to his troops, " Fire ! " It was a murder, not a battle. 
Only a few random shots were returned by the patriots to the 
volley which followed. Jonas Parker had sworn never to run 



April 19, T 
1775. J 



LEXINGTON AND CONCORD. 



H7 



from the red-coats. Already wounded, he was reloading his gun 
on his knees, when a bayonet thrust pierced his heart. Harring- 
ton was hit while standing in front of his house. His wife saw 
him from the window, and rushed down only to catch him as, 
tottering forward, he expired in her arms. With three huzzas 




PAUL REVERE SI'KEAUING THE ALARM. 



over their valiant slaughter of a handful of villagers, the troops 
marched on, leaving behind them seven Americans lying on the 
bloody grass — the first dead of the Revolution. 

Lonely did they look in the still air and the solemn hush that 
fell on the town after the sharp crack of the rifle had died away ; 
but they were heroes all, and, a century later, we gaze back upon 
Lexington as upon an altar of sacrifice. 

" Of man for man the sacrifice, 

Unstained by blood, save theirs, they gave. 
The flowers that blossomed from their grave 
Have sown themselves beneath all skies. 

" No seers were they, but simple men ; 
Its vast results the future hid ; 
The meaning of the work they did 
Was strange and dark and doubtful then." 

Elated by their success, the English now pushed forward to 
Concord and destroyed what stores they could find at that place. 
Major Pitcairn, who was given to bluster as well as profanity, 
entered the village tavern and poured out a glass of brandy, 
which he sweetened to his taste, but not finding a spoon to stir 



148 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 



|"AprMJ9, 



1775. 



it, mixed it with his fingers ; at the same time saying in bluff 
soldier fashion that "just so he would stir up the blood of the 
Yankees before the day was over." Meantime the militia were 
gathering fast on the neighboring hills, and even ventured to 
sharply return a volley from the British pickets at the Concord 
Bridge, where 

" The embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 




The grenadiers ran in confusion. The example was contagious, 
and Smith decided to return. It was high time. The whole region 

was in arms. Every boy 
old enough to grasp a 
musket and a powder- 
horn hurried to avenge 
his fellows. The gray- 
haired men hobbled on 
as best they could to 
get a shot at the ene- 
mies of their country. 
An old hoary-headed 
man of Woburn figures 
in the stories of the 
time, who rode a fine 
white horse after the 
flying troops, and, dismounting within gunshot, would send his 
sure bullet to the mark. When he fired some one fell. They 
came to cry, at sight of him, " Look out, there is the man on the 
white horse." Every bush, tree, stone wall, and building con- 
cealed a patriot, who blazed away at the red-coats as they passed, 
firing, loading quickly, and then running ahead across the fields 
to catch another shot ; fresh allies on either flank streamed in by 
every cross-road ; and between them all the British, no longer in 
ranks, were flying like sheep along the same road by which they 
had come, afraid of the storm they had aroused. The whole 
body would have been captured had they not met Lord Percy 
with reinforcements near Lexington. He formed a hollow square 
to receive the breathless fugitives, who rushed forward with 
" tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a 
chase." Even now there was danger. The woods were swarm- 
ing with " rebels." The cannon Percy had brought with him 



April 19,1 
1775. J 



LEXINGTON AND CONCORD. 



I49 



scarcely kept the Americans at bay. It was with the greatest 
difficulty that he at last escaped under the guns of the fleet off 
Charlestown. 

During that eventful day the English had lost about two 
hundred and eighty, and the Continentals one-third that num- 
ber. Percy's men, enraged at their losses, plundered houses, 
destroyed furniture, and fired buildings on their route, driving 
the sick from their beds and killing the infirm. In one place, a 
boy had taken refuge under his mother's bed ; a soldier, seeing 
the little fellow's foot projecting, barbarously pinned it to the 
floor with his bayonet. The young hero never groaned. 

The effect of this day's work was electrical. The news that 
American blood had been spilled flew like wildfire. Patriots 
came pouring in from all sides. General Putnam, " Old Put," as 
he was familiarly called, already famous for his exploit in the 




PUTNAM STARTING FOR CAMBRIDGE. 



wolf's den and other equally daring deeds, left his cattle yoked in 
the field, and without changing the checked shirt he had on, 
mounted his fastest horse, and the next morning was at Cam- 
bridge, having ridden one hundred miles in eighteen hours. 
Soon twenty thousand men were at work throwing up entrench- 
ments to fasten the British in the city. Congresses were formed 



i5o 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 



TMay IO 
L 1775. 



in all the colonies, and committees of safety were appointed to 
call out the troops, and to provide for any emergency. 

Meanwhile Connecticut resolved to strike a blow for the good 
cause. An expedition was accordingly fitted out under Ethan 
Allen, a noted leader of the " Green Mountain Boys," and Bene- 
dict Arnold, to seize the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
Troops were hastily gathered, and the march began. Late on the 
night of May 9th they reached the shore of the lake. Only a few 
boats could be secured, and at daybreak only eighty-three men 
had crossed. No time was to be lost if a surprise was to be 
effected. With this little band, Allen marched directly upon a 
fortress that mounted one hundred guns — himself leading the at- 




tack, with Arnold emulously at his side. As Allen rushed into 
the sally-port, a sentinel snapped his gun at him and fled. The 
Green Mountain Boys quickly formed upon the parade-ground in 
hollow square, facing each way toward the barracks, and raised 
the Indian whoop. " It was a cry," says Bancroft, " that had not 
been heard there since the time of Montcalm." Rapidly making 
his way to the commander's quarters, Allen, in a voice of thunder, 
ordered him to surrender. " By whose authority ?" exclaimed the 
frightened officer. " In the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress ! " shouted Allen. No resistance was at- 



J "7f»*0 CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA. I 5 I 

tempted. Large stores of cannon and ammunition, just then so 
much needed by the troops at Boston, fell into the hands of the 
Americans without the loss of a single man. A detachment was 
sent off under Colonel Seth Warner to take Crown Point, and that 
fort surrendered at the first summons. 

A few hours after the capture of Ticonderoga, the second Con- 
tinental Congress met at Philadelphia. It voted to raise twenty 
thousand men, and to issue three million dollars in paper money. 
John Adams, after a powerful speech setting forth the qualities 
requisite for the commander-in-chief of the army, suddenly nomi- 
nated George Washington, then present as delegate from Virginia, 
for that high office. All were surprised, as he had informed no 
one of his intention, but the members unanimously approved the 
choice. Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel 
Putnam were appointed major-generals ; Seth Pomeroy, Richard 
Montgomery, David Wooster, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, 
John Thomas, John Sullivan, and Nathaniel Greene, brigadiers ; 
Horatio Gates was made adjutant-general, with the rank of briga- 
dier. Strange to say, there were still hopes of a reconciliation, 
and committees were appointed to petition the king and to ad- 
dress the people of England. 

Gage had now received heavy reinforcements under experi- 
enced generals, Clinton, Burgoyne, and Howe. Thus encour- 
aged, he declared martial law, but offered pardon to all rebels 
who should lay down their arms, excluding, however, Samuel 
Adams and Hancock, whose crimes were so great that they were 
to be taken to England and reserved for more condign punish- 
ment. The English were now determined, as Burgoyne expressed 
it, to get " elbow room," and they had already resolved to fortify 
Dorchester Heights and Bunker Hill, which overlooked the city, 
on the 1 8th of June. This becoming known in the patriot camp, 
it was decided to anticipate them ; and General Ward, who was 
then at the head of the besieging forces, ordered Colonel Prescott, 
with one thousand men, to occupy Bunker Hill. On the night 
of June 1 6th the troops assembled at Cambridge, whence, after 
prayer by President Langdon of Harvard College, they noise- 
lessly marched to Breed's Hill, which they had decided to be a 
more commanding position. It was bright moonlight, and they 
were so near the enemy that they could distinctly hear the "All's 
well" of the sentinels at the foot of Copp's Hill; yet so quietly did 
they work that there was no alarm. Before morning they had 



152 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 



TJune 17 



1775. 



thrown up a redoubt eight rods square and six feet high. At 
dawn, a watchman on one of the ships discovered the earthwork. 
Fire was at once opened, in which soon after all the shipping and 
a battery on Copp's Hill joined. Under the raining bombs and 
balls the Americans toiled on, strengthening the work already 




THE PRAYER BEFORE THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 



thrown up, and also running a breastwork north about twenty 
rods down the hill. A soldier who had ventured outside being 
killed by a cannon-ball, some panic-stricken ones fled. Colonel 
Prescott, although his tall, commanding form rendered him a con- 
spicuous mark, sought to reassure his men by leisurely making a 
tour upon the parapet. General Gage, in Boston, was standing 
near Counsellor Willard, Prescott's brother-in-law, inspecting the 
works through a glass. " Who is that ?" he demanded. " That is 
Colonel Prescott," was the reply. " Will he fight?" was the next 
question. " Yes, sir," said Willard ; " he will fight as long as a 
drop of blood remains in his veins." " The works must be carried 
immediately," was the quick response, and the British general 
turned to give the orders. 

The English commander might have occupied the neck of the 
peninsula and cut off the entire American forces. Instead, he 



iunel7,1 
1775. J 



BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 



153 



landed at Morton's Point with about two thousand men, intending 
to march along the Mystic river and thus outflank the American 
line. Prescott sent a Connecticut regiment to check this move- 
ment. They took post behind a low stone wall and rail fence, in 
front of which they placed a second fence, filling the space between 
with new-mown hay. The artillery was stationed in the gap 
between the rail fence and breastwork. Ward, fearing an attack 
at Cambridge, refused to send reinforcements, but patriots singly 
and in squads dared the passage of the Charlestown peninsula, 
now raked by the enemy's fire, and came to the aid of their 
countrymen. Pomeroy, an old man of seventy, leaving his 
horse, which was a borrowed one, lest it might be killed on the 
way, shouldered a musket, and came on foot into the lines. Dr. 
Warren, who had just received his commission as major-general, 
reached the redoubt and served as a volunteer. Stark and his 
New Hampshire men took post with the Connecticut regiment, 
rapidly extending their line down to the river. Prescott sent back 
the entrenching 
tools to General 
Putnam, who was 
planning to fortify 
Bunker Hill, but 
the tired men who 
carried them took 
advantage of the 
opportunity and 
ran to the rear. 

Howe, seeing 
the strength of 
the American 
position, prudent- 
ly waited for rein- 
forcements. On 

their arrival, he formed his men. It was a moment of terrible sus- 
pense. The neighboring hills, the streets and roofs of Boston were 
crowded with anxious spectators. On the one side were fifteen 
hundred undisciplined yeomen, weary with their night's labor, 
hungry and thirsty, under a leader of no acknowledged reputation ; 
on the other, three thousand picked troops, richly uniformed and 
equipped ; officers and men who had won victories on many of the 
famous battlefields of Europe. The British slowly ascended the 




BATTLE OF 
BUNKER HILL 



154 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 



fJune 17, 
L 1775. 



hill, breaking their ranks only to throw down the fences and to 
pass the obstructions which lay in their way. As they drew near 
they opened a heavy fire, while all the time ships and floating bat- 
teries never ceased raining shot and shell upon the patriot lines. 
Prescott had instructed his men to wait until they could " see 
the whites of their enemies' eyes" before firing, and then "aim 
at their waistbands." The patriot ranks lay quietly behind their 




earthworks until the British 
were within ten rods, every 
piece sighted and pointed at 
its victim. Suddenly Pres- 
cott, waving his sword, shout- 
ed, u Fire ! " A blaze of light 
shot from the whole line ; soon 
another; and then another. 
Entire platoons went down 
before the terrible storm. 
The survivors, unwilling to fly, stood among the dead, bewil- 
dered, paralyzed, by the shock. At last, the bugles sounded the 
recall and they fell back to the shore. 

After a brief delay, Howe rallied his men and advanced a 
second time under cover of the smoke of Charlestown, which had 
been fired by his orders. Again they met that deadly discharge 
and again recoiled in dismay. 



THE BAYONET CHARGE AT HUNKER HILL. 



Ju , n 775 7 '] BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 1 55 

Clinton came with reinforcements from Boston, and a third 
attempt was now made. The British soldiers threw off their 
knapsacks and moved at the quickstep, with orders to use the 
bayonet only. The artillery was brought to bear on the fatal gap 
between the breastwork and the rail fence. The defenders of the 
former were quickly driven into the redoubt. This was attacked 
on three sides at once. The ammunition was scarce in the 
American ranks. Only one volley smote the British ; the head 
of their column was torn in pieces, but the main body poured 
over the ramparts, driving all before it. Even yet the patriots 
sturdily resisted ; most, having no bayonets, clubbed their mus- 
kets and disputed every inch. As a sample of the spirit of the 
day, one Salmon Steele is quoted, who, as he was leaving the 
redoubt, stumbled over a dead British soldier. On opening his 
enemy's cartridge-box and finding only one round was used, he 
strapped the box to his side, and fired the remaining ammunition 
with deadly aim before he left the field. Saddest of all that day's 
losses, Warren was shot by a British officer who knew him, as he 
was trying to rally his men. Stark, at the rail fence, when he 
saw the redoubt taken, sullenly retired. The British regi- 
ments, wounded and shattered, were unable to continue the 
pursuit. Putnam, collecting the fugitives, held Prospect Hill, 
scarce a mile in the rear of the battle-field. The English had lost 
over a thousand men, the Americans but four hundred and fifty. 
Sorrowful was the sight the sun beheld as it sank to rest. Where 
but the day before the mower had quietly swung the scythe, the 
dead now lay " thick as sheep in the fold." 

The effect of this battle upon the patriot cause was that of a 
victory. It had been proven that American farmers could stand 
firmly before the muskets of British regulars. The struggle for 
liberty might be a severe one, but there was a chance for suc- 
cess. " Americans will fight," Franklin wrote ; " England has 
lost her colonies forever." " Did the militia stand fire? " inquired 
Washington. When he learned that they not only did that, but 
withheld their own until the British were within ten rods, he 
exclaimed, " The liberties of the country are safe." From ridi- 
cule of American pretension, the British were suddenly startled 
into respect for American valor. The troops who expected to 
crush the " impudent rebels " in one easy charge, now boasted of 
their courage in advancing against so murderous a foe, and took 
credit for a bravery to which, it was averred, " no history could 



156 OPENING OF THE WAR. [ J $f£ 

produce a parallel." The colonists had at least compelled an 
acknowledgment of their claim to a decent regard. 

News of the fight at Bunker Hill reached Philadelphia on the 
22d. The next day Washington set out for Cambridge to take 
command of the army. On Monday, July 3, beneath the spread- 
ing elm since so famous in song and story, he formally assumed the 
command. Washington is described at this time as a tall, finely- 
proportioned, dignified man, with a strikingly noble and com- 
manding air. Mrs. Adams, who was present, wrote thus to her 
husband : " Those lines of Dryden instantly recurred to me : 

' Mark his majestic fabric ! His a temple 
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine ; 
His soul's the Deity that lodges there ; 
Nor is the pile unworthy of the God.' " 

According to the fashion of his time, he was dressed in a blue 
broadcloth coat faced with buff, buff small-clothes, silk stockings, 
shoulder epaulettes, and a cocked hat. As he wheeled his horse 
and drew his sword, a shout of enthusiasm went up from the 
assembled multitude. 

He found the army numbering about fourteen thousand. It 
was an army, however, only in name. In fact, it was merely an 
immense " gathering of neighbors, schoolmates, and friends," 
each with his own musket, powder-horn, and bag of bullets, and 
only such provisions as he had brought with him or as were 
sent into camp by his friends and others. Some of these had 
left home on the impulse of excitement, and already wearied of 
the monotony and peril of war. There were bitter jealousies 
growing out of the appointment of the higher officers by Con- 
gress. Many of the inferior officers were grossly inefficient, 
insubordinate, and over-confident. Few of the companies were 
disciplined or uniformed. Powder was so scarce that there was 
only enough to furnish nine cartridges to each man. " Our situa- 
tion in the article of powder is much more alarming than I had 
the faintest idea of," wrote Washington to Congress. Reed, 
Washington's secretary, reported that " almost the whole powder 
of the army was in the cartridge-boxes." " The bay is open : 
everything thaws here, except Old Put," facetiously wrote 
another ; " he is still as hard as ever, crying out for ' Powder, 
powder ! Ye gods, give us powder ! ' ' Washington immedi- 
ately set about organizing the troops and reforming abuses, 



July ( toOct.,j SIEGE OF BOSTON. 1 57 

meanwhile strengthening their position against any attempt of 
Gage to break out of Boston. Fortunately, such was the dis- 
couragement of the British leader that he never ventured even to 
make a sally. The provincial lines were nearly nine miles in 
length. Washington himself took command of the centre, Gen- 
eral Ward of the right wing, and General Charles Lee, a former 
British officer who had espoused the patriot cause, of the left. 

The first troops raised under the order of Congress were the 
Virginia riflemen. In less than sixty days, says Bancroft, twelve 
companies were in Washington's camp, having come on foot from 
four to eight hundred miles. The men, painted in the guise of 
savages, were strong and of great endurance ; many of them 
more than six feet high ; they wore leggins and moccasins, and 
an ash-colored hunting-shirt with a double cape ; each one 
carried a rifle, a hatchet, a small axe, and a hunter's knife. They 
could subsist on a little parched corn and game killed as they 
went along ; at night, wrapped in their blankets, they willingly 
made a tree their canopy, the earth their bed. The rifle in their 
hands sent its ball with unerring precision a distance of two or 
three hundred yards. Their motto was, " Liberty or Death." 
Newspapers of the day relate how they offered to shoot apples 
off one another's heads in true William Tell style ; how one man 
at sixty paces put eight balls through a paper the size of a dollar ; 
and another stuck his knife into a tree, and firing, halved his 
bullet upon the edge. 

During the summer and fall there was constant skirmishing 
around Boston. Transports bearing stores to the beleaguered 
troops were seized. Parties gathering hay and other supplies on 
the islands in the bay were attacked in the boldest manner. The 
English ships along the coast began a predatory warfare which 
did little harm, but bitterly exasperated the people. On Octo- 
ber 16, Captain Mowatt burned the town of Falmouth, now 
Portland, declaring that he had orders to destroy every seaport, 
between Boston and Halifax. 

While all these stirring events were transpiring around Bos- 
ton, the cause of liberty was kindling into life in the other 
colonies. In April, Dunmore, the detested governor of Virginia, 
imitating the action of Gage of Massachusetts, seized the powder 
in the magazine at Williamsburg. This overt act aroused 
general indignation. Patrick Henry headed the people in a call 
upon the governor, and they did not come away until he had 



i 5 8 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 



TApril 21, 
L 1775. 



promised to pay for the powder. The amount given, fifteen 
hundred dollars, was afterward found to be too large, and the 
balance was returned to Dunmore. The governor, alarmed by 
the situation of affairs, fortified his residence and issued a procla- 
mation against Henry 
and his compatriots. 
Some letters of the 
governor's, grossly mis- 
representing the colo- 
nists, were afterward 
intercepted, and these 
adding fuel to the flame, 
he was forced to take 
refuge on board a royal 
vessel. From this asy- 
lum he valiantly de- 
clared martial law, and 
called upon the slaves 
to leave their masters 
and help him in his 
emergency. He thus 
gathered at Norfolk a 
small force of blacks and royalists. November 28, the Vir- 
ginia militia came over to Great Bridge, where they threw 
up a fortification opposite the British fort built to defend the 
approach to Norfolk. A few days after, Dunmore, with the 
seamen from the ships and a mixed crowd of royalists and 
negroes, came out to drive them from their position. The 
negroes and loyalists stood at a safe distance, while the regulars 
bravely charged down the narrow causeway, one hundred and 
sixty yards long, at the end of which was the entrenchment. 
The fire of the sharpshooters was terrific. The British leader, 
Fordyce, fell, struck by fourteen balls. The rest fled, leaving 
half their number behind. The Virginians lost not a man, and 
only one received a slight wound. After the firing ceased, they 
hastened to bring in their wounded foes who might need the 
surgeon's aid. So little did the British understand their generous 
sympathy, that the sufferers shrank from their approach, expect- 
ing the tomahawk or the scalping-knife. " For God's sake," cried 
one, " don't murder us." " Put your arm about my neck," was 
the quiet reply, and the sturdy Virginian, who had just laid 




THE OLD MAGAZINE AT WILLIAMSBURG. 



D ffj£:] EVENTS IN THE SOUTH. I $9 

down his rifle, tenderly supported his wounded enemy to the 
breastworks. Captain Leslie, who commanded the negroes and 
tories, was so touched by the gentle act, that he stepped upon the 
platform of the fort and bowed his respectful thanks to the 
" shirtmen," whose hearts were as kind as their souls were brave. 
The next night the British abandoned the fort and fled to the 
protection of their ships. 

On New Year's day, 1776, Dunmore landed troops which set 
fire to Norfolk, the richest town in Virginia. Finally, abandoning 
the Old Dominion, he sailed with his followers for the West 
Indies. Though largely monarchical in feeling and Episcopal in 
worship, Virginia had already given a leader to the Democratic 
and Presbyterian army that beleaguered Boston. By this last act 
her alienation from the crown was made complete. 

In New England the feeling against the British aggressions, as 
we have seen, was strong from the very first. This was natural, 
since the rigor of the English laws pressed most heavily upon 
that part of the country. " Here," says Sabine, " were the 
Roundheads, who met England in the workshops and on the 
ocean." Adams, in sight of the ashes of Charlestown and the 
trenches of Bunker Hill, wrote that Congress should at once 
adopt a constitution and provide for defence. His letters were 
published by the royalists in the expectation that they would 
destroy his reputation and influence among the people. 

In the Middle and Southern States the feeling was far from 
unanimous. Tories were thick in Maryland, Pennsylvania, South 
Carolina, and Georgia. New York was a stronghold of the 
royalists, and it was long doubtful which way the assembly would 
eventually go. In Queens county the inhabitants, by a vote of 
more than three to one, refused to send delegates to the Provin- 
cial Congress. The Delanceys and Phillipses in Westchester, 
staunch friends of the king and vast land-holders, so influenced 
their numerous tenantry, that all the patriotism of Van Court- 
landt and of Morris of Morrisania could only hold a nearly equal 
balance. 

While Washington was en route for the camp at Boston, a 
complication arose at New York which curiously illustrates the 
condition of affairs and the indecision of many of the people. " At 
the same time with his arrival," says Sparks, " news had come 
that Governor Tryon was in the harbor, just arrived from Eng- 
land, and would land that day. The Provincial Congress were 



l6o OPENING OF THE WAR. [ M |7$|. Q 

a good deal embarrassed to determine how to act on this occa- 
sion ; for though they had thrown off all allegiance to the 
authority of their governor, they yet professed to maintain 
loyalty to his person. They finally ordered a colonel to so dis- 
pose of his militia as to be ready to receive ' cither the General or 
Governor Tryon, whichever should first arrive, and wait on both as 
well as circumstances would alloiv.' ' 

As New York city was exposed to a bombardment from the 
English vessels, the merchants were often exceeding timid, even 
when their sympathies were with the patriots. Governor Tryon 
had announced that Lord Dartmoor, in command of the fleet, had 
orders to consider and treat any city taking a decisive part, as in 
open rebellion. The utmost zeal of the whigs for a long time 
made little head against the fears of some and the opposition of 
others. A committee of public safety, however, had been ap- 
pointed. The tories did all they could to embarrass any action, 
and to furnish the British ships in the bay with information and 
provisions. At last, Congress having recommended the arrest of 
any person whose going at large was likely to endanger the safety 
of the colonies, Governor Tryon took alarm and went on board a 
vessel. Here he was in constant intercourse with the tories, and 
encouraged every movement of hostility to the patriot cause. 

The course of Pennsylvania was undecided, since, besides its 
royalist population, it was a Quaker colony, and the religious 
principles of the people forbade any forcible resistance to the 
tyranny of their rulers. While the precipitate action of Gage 
and Dunmore hurried the colonies under their immediate 
authority into rebellion, the governors of Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were prudent and wisely 
watched the progress of affairs. Hence in these colonies there 
was little disturbance, and the people quietly waited the action of 
the British government. 

North Carolina was largely whig from the start. The regu- 
lators of that State were the first to take up arms to secure their 
rights. As early as May, 1775, the patriots of Mecklenburg 
county met at Charlotte and declared their allegiance to king and 
parliament forever ended. The Mecklenburg Declaration was 
issued fourteen months before the Colonial Congress met in Phil- 
adelphia and the old State-house bell rang out liberty to all the 
land. In South Carolina, on the other hand, the royalists were 
numerous, active, and probably in the majority. The income of 



July 4, T 
1775. J 



THE FEELING TOWARD ENGLAND. 



161 



the planters and the commerce of Charleston itself rested upon 
raw products raised and shipped to England. The ties of 
interest, business, and friendly relationship all bound the princi- 
pal men to the mother country. War would sunder these at 
once. Yet the patriots of this colony, which had so much at 
stake, perilled all, drove off the royal governor, fortified Charles- 
ton, and took their government in their own hands. 

Georgia was also friendly to parliament, and, indeed, was not 
represented in the Continental Congress until the second session, 
delegates being elected July 4, 1775. 

In looking back upon it now, the action of Congress seems to 
us to have been timid and uncertain. It had forwarded a second 
petition to the British government, and the majority still fondly 
dreamed of reconciliation with England. At tb<* most, said they, 
a single campaign will show the king the folly of coercion. The 
truth is, the colonists yet clung to their English traditions with 
wonderful tenacity. They earnestly 
desired a settlement of their diffi- 
culties, and a restoration to their 
old situation. They hoped only for 
a redress of certain grievances, and 
then all would be well. Jefferson 
afterward wrote that the " possibil- 
ity of a separation from England 
was contemplated with affliction by 
all." Washington said, " When I 
first took command of the army, I 

abhorred the idea of independence ;" and John Adams even, the 
very palladium of American independence, declared that " there 
was not a moment during the Revolution when I would not have 
given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things 
before the contest began, provided we could have a sufficient 
guaranty for its continuance." Dickinson, from the beginning 
the patriot leader of Pennsylvania, opposed the Declaration of 
Independence in 1776 to the very last. Under these circum- 
stances, Congress was timorous. Franklin's plan of a confedera- 
tion, considered twenty-one years before, in Albany, was brought 
out again, but laid aside. Troops were enlisted only until an 
answer could be expected from the petition. A third million 
dollars in paper was ordered to be printed ; but Congress had 
no power to lay taxes of any kind ; while commerce was dead, and 
11 




CONTINENTAL MONEY. 



1 62 OPENING OF THE WAR. [1775. 

there were no imports. Promises of thirteen colonies, distracted 
by war and internal dissension, to pay at some indefinite time, 
were sure to depreciate from the beginning. It seemed the best, 
however, that could be done. 

Meanwhile the British government was straining every nerve 
to recruit its armies in America. British emissaries were busy 
among the Five Nations of central New York and the savage 
Indians of Canada, urging them to take up arms against the colo- 
nists. The " Olive Branch," as the petition to the king was styled, 
was rejected. Trade with the colonies was forbidden. American 
vessels, and all others found trading in American ports, with 
their cargoes, were liable to seizure, and the crews to be treated 
as slaves. Treaties were made with certain German princes, 
who promised to furnish seventeen thousand men for the Amer- 
ican war at thirty -six dollars per head. The Landgrave of Hesse- 
Cassel sent the largest number, hence these mercenaries were 
called Hessians. 

The obstinacy of the king, the refusal even to hear the re- 
spectful petition read in parliament, the passage of these violent 
measures, and especially the hiring of foreign mercenaries, filled 
the cup of England's wrongs to her colonies. Separation and war 
were inevitable. 

Congress invited the other British colonies in America to 
unite with them in asserting their rights. As Canada refused to 
take part in the movement, and British forces ascending the St. 
Lawrence could thence attack the colonies in the rear, it was de- 
cided, if possible, to wrest that country from the crown. Early in 
the summer and fall of 1775, General Montgomery, commanding 
an expedition, captured St. John's, at the foot of Lake Champlain, 
within the Canadian border. Thence pushing on to Montreal, he 
took that city, and advanced through the ice and snow of Decem- 
ber upon Quebec. 

Meanwhile a force under General Arnold, detached from the 
beleaguering army at Boston, had ascended the Kennebec River, 
and made its way northward through the pathless wilderness. 
With this indefatigable leader were Morgan, Greene, Meigs, and 
Aaron Burr — then a young man of twenty, afterward Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. No pen can describe the horrors of 
their march. Making their way with infinite toil ; carrying their 
boats, baggage, and ammunition past the rapids and marshy 
swamps ; exposed to rain and storm ; crossing swollen streams ; 



Nov. 10,1 
1775. J 



SIEGE OF QUEBEC. 



163 



barefooted and with clothes torn almost to nakedness ; cold, wet, 
weary, and sick ; with the last ox killed ; the last dog eaten ; then 
roots and moose-skin moccasins devoured in the extremity of 
hunger; finally, after two days of starvation, the famished troops 
emerged among the Canadian settlements. On the 10th of No- 
vember they appeared like spectres upon the banks of the St. 
Lawrence, opposite Quebec. Morgan's riflemen wore linen hunt- 
ing-shirts. By some mistake, in the news of their coming, the 
word toile became changed to tolc, and the simple peasants heard 
to their amazement that the advancing army were clad in sheet- 
iron. Securing boats with the greatest difficulty, Arnold crossed 
the river, landed in the same cove where Wolfe made his daring 
attempt, and climbed to the Plains of Abraham. He here sum- 
moned the city to surrender ; but in vain. Soon after, he was 
joined by Montgomery, who took the command. Their com- 
bined forces did not number one thousand men and a few small 
cannon, yet they 
proposed to be- 
siege the greatest 
fortified city in 
America, mount- 
ing two hundred 
guns and defend- 
ed by an army 
twice as large as 
their own. But 
Montgomery had 
been a companion 
of Wolfe, and he 
emulated his glo- 
rious example. 
For a time he en- 
deavored to pro- 
voke the garrison to come out and fight in the open field ; but 
Carleton, the governor, was present when Montcalm ventured to 
leave the protection of the walls, and he did not propose to 
repeat the rash experiment. Montgomery was forced to begin 
a regular siege. The ground was frozen too hard to trench for 
planting the battery, so he filled the gabions and fascines with 
snow, over which he poured water. This made a solid rampart 
of ice to protect the men as they worked the guns. Three 




THE PRESCOTT GATE, QUEBEC. 



164 OPENING OF THE WAR. l°mi! t 

weeks of useless labor followed. Perils thickened. The artillery 
was too light to breach the walls ; small-pox and other diseases 
broke out among the troops ; the enlistment of the men had 
nearly expired, and soon the army would break up. Montgom- 
ery decided to venture all upon an assault. The preparations 
were carefully made. There were to be two feigned movements 
upon the upper town to distract the attention of the besieged, 
while the real attacks were made by Montgomery and Arnold on 
the lower town. The former general was to advance along the 
St. Lawrence, and the latter, the St. Charles River, and both were 
to unite in storming the Prescott Gate. 

It was the last morning of the year 1775. The men were ready 
at two o'clock. To recognize one another in the dark, they placed 
in the front of their hats bits of white paper, on which some of 
them wrote Patrick Henry's words, " Liberty or Death." It was 
storming bitterly as they sallied out from their rude huts, and 
stumbled through and against the cutting hail and deep-driving 
snow. They tried to protect their guns as best they could, but 
they soon became useless. Montgomery, advancing along the 
river at the foot of Cape Diamond Cliff, helped with his own hands 
to push aside the huge blocks of ice, and, struggling through the 
drifts, cheered on his panting men. As they rushed forward, a 
rude block-house appeared through the blinding storm. " Men of 
New York," he shouted, " you will not fear to follow where your 
general leads." Charging upon it, he fell at the first fire. His 
followers, disheartened, fled. Arnold, in the meantime, ap- 
proached the opposite side of the city. While bravely fighting 
he was severely wounded and borne to the rear. Morgan, his 
successor, pressed on the attack with his riflemen ; but at last, 
unable to retreat or advance against the tremendous odds, now 
that Montgomery's assault had failed, he took refuge in the neigh- 
boring houses, where he was finally forced to surrender. The 
remainder of the army, crouching behind mounds of snow and 
ice, maintained a blockade of the city until spring. Congress, 
blindly bent on keeping up the useless struggle, ordered Washing- 
ton to send his best men and officers, and to divide his scanty 
supply of powder, for the siege of Quebec. It was in vain. The 
garrison laughed outright as they saw General Wooster, the new 
commander, in his big wig, spying out their weak points. They 
knew they were invincible. 

May 1st, General Thomas assumed control of the blockading 



July, "I 
1776 J 



ABANDONMENT OF CANADA. 



I6 5 



army. He decided to retreat. It was already too late. Rein- 
forcements from England were fast arriving in Quebec. Before 
he could remove his sick the garrison sallied out from the gates 
and drove his men in confusion. Many of the sick, amid the 
hurry, crept off among the Canadian peasants, who nursed them 
kindly, while Carleton gave them the privilege of entering the 
hospital, with leave to return home when they were fully recov- 
ered. Thomas dying of the small-pox, Sullivan took command. 
He attempted the offensive, but was soon forced to resume the 
retreat. 

It was not until July that the fragments of the army of Canada, 
then under Gates, safely reached Crown Point. Terrible was 
their condition. " There was not a hut," says Trumbull, " which 
did not contain a dead or dying man ;" while a physician, witness- 
ing the arrival of the sick, declared that he " wept at their suffer- 
ings until he could weep no more." 




A STREET IN QUEBEC — SCENE OF ARNOLD'S ATTACK. 



CHAPTER III. 

IMDE(PEJJ(DEMCE YEJfc—1776. 




URING the winter of 1775-6, Con- 
gress and the country were impa- 
tient at Washington's inactivity. 
He dared not make known his 
real weakness. He could not 
publish the facts : that for six 
months he never had powder 
enough for a battle ; that the 
military chest was empty, the 
men appointed to sign the paper- 
promises being too lazy to do the 
work ; that he lacked bayonets ; 
that two thousand of his men had 
no muskets ; that, by the expiration of enlistments, he had to dis- 
band one army and recruit another ; and all this in the presence 
of the enemy. Toward the close of December, the Connecticut 
troops, having served their time of enlistment, determined to 
leave in a body. Washington was greatly hurt by this lack of 
patriotism. He tried to stimulate their zeal by frequent appeals, 
and made the camp to resound with popular songs of heroism and 
liberty. But it was all in vain. " The desire of retiring into a 
chimney-corner seizes the troops as soon as their terms expire," 
he wrote reproachfully. So little sympathy did these recreant 
troops find on their way homeward that they could hardly get 
enough to eat, and when they reached their own firesides they 
found the honest indignation of their patriot wives and mothers 
a so much harder thing to face than the mouth of the enemy's 
cannon, that many were glad soon to return to camp. 

Washington, in spite of all these discouragements, resolutely 
laid his plans, and made ready for a grand stroke which he hoped 



M f776. 4 '] EVACUATION OF BOSTON. \6y 

would be decisive. On the 4th of March, just after the candles 
were lighted in the houses of Boston, he suddenly opened a tre- 
mendous fire on the city from all his batteries. The enemy replied. 
Soon the air was heavy with the roar of the guns, and the streets 
were full of citizens and soldiers watching the flight of the shells 
and dreading their fall and explosion. Under cover of the noise 
and confusion, Dorchester Heights were occupied, entrenchments 
thrown up with bales of pressed hay, an abattis made of the trees 
in the neighboring orchards, and even barrels of stone provided 
to roll down on an advancing enemy. In the morning the Eng- 
lish were astonished to see on a height commanding the city a 
formidable-looking fortress looming indistinctly through the ris- 
ing fog." " The rebels," exclaimed Howe, " have done more work 
in one night than my whole army would have done in a month." 
" We must drive them from that post," said Colonel Monckton, 
"or desert the place." A storm prevented an immediate attack, 
a delay which was well improved by the provincials. General 
Howe, who was then in command, remembering the lesson of 
Bunker Hill, decided to leave. Indeed, there was no alternative. 
The British troops had no stomach for another fight. The Amer- 
ican cannon completely commanded the harbor, and the admiral 
refused to remain. Gage accordingly set sail for Halifax on the 
17th with his entire army and about eleven hundred loyalists. 
Washington's end was accomplished, and not twenty men had 
been lost since he took command. 

It was a bitter pill for the English. The generals who had 
come expecting to run over the colonies at their pleasure, and 
had even brought with them fishing-rods, as if on a holiday ex- 
cursion, had, instead, been cooped up close to their landing-place 
for months, and were now forced to ignominiously leave their 
winter-quarters, and to lower their flag without the satisfaction 
of firing a parting shot. But how sad was it for the loyalists 
who had clung to the king, and now, startled by finding the army 
unable to protect them, were suddenly forced to leave native 
land, home, and property, and henceforth to drag out a useless 
life on a dreary shore, pensioners on the bounty which the gov- 
ernment pityingly doled out to them in their distress ! 

For eleven months the inhabitants had endured the horrors of 
a siege and the insolence of the soldiery. Houses and shade- 
trees had been burned for fuel. The Old North Meeting-House 
had thus passed into ashes, the Old South being reserved for a 



1 68 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ Fe i7' 7 6. 7 

riding-school. An elegantly carved pew with silk hangings, 
belonging to the latter, was taken by one of the officers for a pig- 
sty. Faneuil Hall was converted into a theatre. One evening, 
before a house packed with troops and tories, a play was in pro- 
gression called " The Blockade of Boston," being a broad bur- 
lesque on the patriot army. Washington herein appeared as "an 
awkward lout, equipped with a huge wig and a long rusty sword, 
attended by a country booby as orderly sergeant, in rustic garb, 
with an old firelock seven or eight feet long." It was very funny, 
and when a British sergeant suddenly came to the front, exclaim- 
ing in excited tones, " The Yankees are attacking Bunker's Hill ! " 
it was loudly applauded as a piece of magnificent acting. But, 
directly, the clear, commanding voice of General Howe rang 
out, " Officers, to your alarm-posts." The scene was quickly 
changed. Women shrieked and fainted ; men jumped to their 
feet ; everybody scrambled over everybody else to reach the 
open door. The ridiculous general and his frowsy sergeant were 
left upon the stage to tumble out of their clownish masquerades 
as best they might, while the soldier audience hastened with 
quite different expectations to meet, perhaps, the real Washing- 
ton. But it proved to be General Putnam, who, swooping down 
upon Charlestown, fired the guard-house, took a handful of pris- 
oners, and escaped, without loss, back to the American quarters. 

All this was now passed. Those who had been so long exiled 
from their homes returned to the city. Ancient customs were 
renewed. We read how on Thursday evening following, Wash- 
ington attended the regular week-day lecture, and the congrega- 
tion together thanked God for the restoration of their beloved 
Zion, its " stakes unmoved " and its " cords unbroken." " It 
seemed," says Bancroft, " as if the old century was reaching out 
its hands to the new, and the Puritan ancestry of Massachusetts 
were returning to bless the deliverer of their children." 

Governor Martin of North Carolina, following in the footsteps 
of Dunmore, sought to combine the friends of the king, and thus 
check the rising tide of liberty in his State. He accordingly 
authorized Donald McDonald, a noted Highlander at Cross 
Creek, now Fayetteville, to raise the loyalists of that region. 
Soon fifteen hundred had gathered about the standard of this 
faithful Scotchman. The patriots, however, were awake. Colonel 
Moore, with a large body of regulars and militia, approached his 
headquarters and cut off all his communications with Governor 



Feb. 27,1 
1776. J 



AFFAIRS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



169 



Martin. McDonald, finding he could not intimidate the " rebels," 
thereupon rapidly retreated toward Wilmington, where he 
hoped to join the governor and also await General Clinton, who 
was expected to arrive from the North with reinforcements. At 
Moore's Creek, however, he found his retreat cut off by Colonels 
Caswell and Lillington with one thousand minute-men. The 




BOSTON ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 



brave Highlander resolved to cut his way through the gathering 
foes. Early in the morning of February 27, to the sound of bag- 
pipes and bugle, the royalists advanced to the charge. When 
within twenty paces, the whigs rose from their ambush, while 
another party under Lieutenant Slocum, by a circuit came upon 
the enemy's rear. In a few minutes the tory army was utterly 
routed, with a loss of seventy killed and wounded, while the 
patriots had only two of their number injured. This battle de- 
cided the fate of the royal cause in North Carolina ; and soon 
after the governor took refuge on a British vessel. 

An anecdote is told of the wife of Lieutenant Slocum, who 
was as heroic as himself. After her husband departed, she saw 
him in a dream lying dead on the ground. Awaking in great 
distress, she arose, saddled a horse, and rode at full gallop 
through the swamp in the direction taken by the troops. At nine 
in the morning she neared the battle-field. One of the first 
objects she saw was the lieutenant's cloak wrapped around a 
body stretched upon the ground. With sinking heart, she dis- 



170 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. Vmlf' 

mounted, to find, not her husband, but one of his wounded men. 
She washed his face, bound up his wounds, and was performing 
the like office to a second sufferer when her astonished husband 
came up. She remained all day, caring for the wounded loyalists 
with true Samaritan kindness. At midnight she started for her 
home, where a mother's duties were required. In less than forty 
hours this wonderful woman rode one hundred and twenty-five 
miles, spending the time when out of her saddle, not in taking 
rest, but in dressing the wounds of her enemies. 

Though the British had abandoned Boston, they had not given 
up the war. The next movement was destined for the South. 
Early in June, Admiral Parker appeared off the harbor of 
Charleston with a strong fleet, having on board General Clinton 
with about twenty-five hundred land troops. The South Caro- 
linians had received news of their probable coming, and were 
hard at work getting ready to give their unwelcome visitors a 
hot reception. Fort Sullivan, a fort on an island of the same name, 
commanded the entrance to the harbor. It was built of two rows 
of palmetto logs, sixteen feet apart, the space between being filled 
with sand. Major-General Charles Lee, who had been sent by 
Washington to watch the seaboard, had no confidence in this rude 
fortress, and was anxious to have it abandoned. He declared that 
it was but a " slaughter pen," provided only twenty-eight rounds 
of ammunition for twenty-six of its guns, and repeatedly urged 
the necessity of securing the retreat of the garrison. But the 
brave Carolinians proposed to hold the place. " What do you 
think of it now ? " said an officer to Colonel Moultrie, as they 
were surveying the British line of ships, all of which were 
already over the bar. " We shall beat them," was the determined 
reply. " The men-of-war will knock your fort down in half an 
hour," returned the other. " Then," said Moultrie, nothing 
daunted, " we will lie behind the ruins and prevent their men 
from landing." 

On the morning of the 28th the British fleet took position and 
opened a terrific fire. The balls sank into the porous, spongy 
palmetto logs without breaking or splintering them. Moultrie 
slowly replied, but each shot told, and the ships in a few hours 
were completely riddled. At one time, every man except 
Admiral Parker was swept from the deck of his vessel. In the 
early part of the action the staff was struck by a ball, and the 
flag, the first Republican banner hoisted at the South, fell out- 



June 28, "1 
1776. J 



ATTACK ON FORT MOULTRIE. 



171 




THE ATTACK ON FORT MOULTRIE. 



side the fort. 
Sergeant Jas- 
per leaped 
over the breastwork, 
about which the balls 
were thickly flying, caught 
the flag, and springing back, 
tied it to a sponge staff and 
hoisted it again to its place. Gen- 
eral Clinton, who commanded the 

British land troops, tried to attack the fort in the rear, but Thom- 
son's riflemen, posted behind myrtle bushes and sand hills, made 
it too hot for him. The fleet was at last so badly shattered that 
it withdrew and sailed for New York. This victory gave the 
colonists great delight, as it was their first encounter with the 
boasted " mistress of the seas." The fort so gallantly defended 
was christened Moultrie. It had saved not only a city, but a 
province. The next day Governor Rutledge offered the brave 
Jasper a sword' and a lieutenant's commission. He modestly 
refused the latter, saying, " I am not fit for the company of officers ; 
I am content to be a sergeant." 

Gradually, but surely, the colonists were being weaned from 
the mother country. Day by day for nearly a year the sword 
had been busy, cutting the ties which had so long bound them to 



172 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ftW 

Great Britain. Since the king had pronounced them " rebels," 
the feeling had been gaining ground that independence was the 
only hope. No one did better work toward accomplishing this 
result than Thomas Paine, who, coming from England the year 
before, had been induced by Franklin and others to use his pen 
in behalf of the colonists. His first essay, entitled Common Sense, 
in plain, simple language urged the necessity of at once separat- 
ing entirely from England. Every line glowed with the spirit of 
liberty, and men's hearts were thrilled as they read. The pam- 
phlet reached Congress, then in session at Philadelphia, January 8, 
the day after the news had arrived of the burning of Norfolk by 
Dunmore. It produced a powerful impression. Washington, 
writing to Secretary Reed, says : " A few more such flaming 
arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to 
the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in 
' Common Sense,' will not leave numbers at a loss to decide." 

In April, at the opening of the courts in South Carolina, the 
chief justice charged the jury that they " owed no obedience to 
George III." The British flag kept its place on the State-house 
of Virginia until May of this year, when the assembly directed 
the Virginia delegate in Congress to propose a dissolution of 
their allegiance to Great Britain. Washington wrote that 
" nothing but independence could save the nation." Accordingly 
on the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee offered a resolution 
declaring that " These United Colonies are, and of right 

OUGHT TO BE, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." It was sec- 
onded by John Adams. After a little discussion from the dele- 
gates of several colonies, who were pledged to vote against 
independence, a committee was appointed, consisting of Thomas 
Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and 
Robert R. Livingston, to propose a suitable Declaration ; Jefferson 
representing Virginia, from which the proposition emanated, and, 
being elected by the largest number of votes, was selected to 
draft it. Meanwhile, the delegates from the different colonies 
received instructions from their constituents how to vote upon 
the measure. July 2d, Lee's resolution was formally passed by 
twelve of the colonies; New York alone abstaining from the vote. 
Two days after, the Declaration having been closely debated by 
Congress, was adopted with but few amendments. 

While the protracted and oftentimes severe discussions over 
the Declaration were in progress, Jefferson remained silent ; John 



Iuly4,"l 
1776. J 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



173 



Adams being its stout defender. " During the debate," the 
former wrote in his journal, " I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who 
observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criti- 
cism of some of its parts ; and it was on that occasion that, by 
way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thompson, the 
hatter, and his new sign." All readers of Franklin's autobiography 
will remember the story : how the prospective shopkeeper, with 
much pride, laid out his plan for a sign, " John Thompson, hatter, 
makes and sells hats for ready money," accompanied by a picture 
of the article ; and how his critical friends picked first at this 
word and then at that as superfluous, till the dismayed shopman 
had nothing left but his name and the painted hat. The point was 
too obvious not to be enjoyed, especially when told in Franklin's 
happy style. 

During the day of the 4th the streets of Philadelphia were 
crowded with people anxious to learn the decision. In the steeple 
of the old State-house was a bell 
which, by a strange coincidence, 
was inscribed, " Proclaim liberty 
throughout all the land unto all the 
inhabitants thereof." In the morn- 
ing, when Congress assembled, the 
bell-ringer went to his post, placing 
his boy below to announce when the 
Declaration was adopted, that his 
bell might be the first to peal forth 
the glad tidings. Long he waited as 
the day wore on and the tedious de- 
liberations held the result in sus- 
pension. Impatiently the old man 

shook his head and repeated, " They will never do it ! They will 
never do it ! " Suddenly he heard his boy clapping his hands and 
shouting, " Ring ! Ring ! " Grasping the iron tongue, he swung 
it vigorously to and fro. The crowded streets caught up the 
sound. Every steeple re-echoed it. All that night, by shouts, 
and illuminations, and booming of cannon, the people declared 
their zeal and joy. 

" There was tumult in the city, 

In the quaint old Quakers' town, 

And the streets were rife with people, 

Pacing restless up and down ; — 




LIBERTY BELL. 



174 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. Vflti 

People gathering at corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 
And the sweat stood on their temples, 

With the earnestness of speech. 

" As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, 
So they beat against the State-house, 

So they surged against the door; 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

Was all turbulent with sound. 

" ' Will they do it ? ' ' Dare they do it ? * 

'Who is speaking?' 'What's the news?' 
' What of Adams ? ' ' What of Sherman ? ' 

' Oh, God grant they won't refuse ! ' 
' Make some way there ! ' ' Let me nearer !' 

' I am stifling !' ' Stifle, then ! 

When a nation's life's at hazard, 
We've no time to think of men !' 

" So they beat against the portal, 

Man and woman, maid and child ; 
And the July sun in heaven 

On the scene look'd down and smiled ; 
The same sun that saw the Spartan 

Shield his patriot blood in vain, 
Now beheld the soul of freedom 

All unconquer'd rise again. 

ei See ! See ! The dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line, 
As the boy beside the portal 

Looks forth to give the sign ! 
With his small hands upward lifted, 

Breezes dallying with his hair, 
Hark ! with deep, clear intonation, 

Breaks his young voice on the air. 

81 Hush'd the people's swelling murmur, 

List the boy's strong, joyous cry ! 
8 Ring ! ' he shouts, ' Ring ! Grandpa, 
' Ring ! Oh, Ring for Liberty ! ' 
And straightway, at the signal, 

The old bellman lifts his hand, 
And sends the good news, making 
Iron music through the land. 



A , u / 76 f' DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 1 75 

" How they shouted ! What rejoicing ! 

How the old bell shook the air, 
Till the clang of freedom ruffled 

The calm, gliding Delaware ! 
How the bonfires and the torches 

Illumed the night's repose, 
And from the flames, like Phoenix, 

Fair Liberty arose ! 

"That old bell now is silent, 

And hush'd its iron tongue, 
But the spirit it awakened 

Still lives, — forever young. 
And while we greet the sunlight, 

On the fourth of each July, 
We'll ne'er forget the bellman, 

Who, twixt the earth and sky, 
Rung out Our Independence: 

Which, please God, shall never die /" 

The Declaration had been duly authenticated by the president 
before being published. It was ordered to be engrossed on 
parchment, and on the 2d of August the fifty-four delegates 
present affixed their signatures. John Hancock's name, as presi- 
dent, led the rest. After he had written his name in a bold, clear 
hand, he rose from his seat and said, " There ! John Bull can 
read that without his spectacles, and may now double his reward 
of five hundred pounds for my head. That is my defiance." 
Turning to the rest, he added, " Gentlemen, we must be unani- 
mous ; we must all hang together." " Yes," replied Franklin, " or 
we shall all hang separately." The Declaration of Independence 
was read by Washington's orders at the head of the army then in 
New York. It created the greatest enthusiasm. That night the 
statue of George III. was torn from its pedestal. It was of lead, 
gilded, and being melted, made forty-two thousand bullets for the 
use of the troops. 

The Declaration of Independence completed the breach be- 
tween England and America. It clearly set before the colonists 
the object for which they were struggling, and combined England 
for the overthrow of the new Republic. Henceforth, the issue 
was Liberty or Slavery. There was no other choice. 1 he whig 
and tory parties were now more distinctly defined, and the most 
bitter hatred arose between them. Persons known as favoring 
the king were tarred and feathered by their patriotic neighbors, 



176 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ Jul |776. 12 ' 

and exhibited in this state to the derision of the crowd. Con- 
gress appointed committees to restrain these over-zealous mani- 
festations, but they were often powerless in the face of public sen- 
timent. 

During this year and the next all the States either adopted a 
new constitution or remodeled their charters to adapt them to the 
necessities of free and independent States ; Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut only having to change the word "king" to "people" to 
effect this result. 

It is a noticeable fact that the founders of our government, 
when they threw off the bondage of Great Britain, had no direct 
intention of founding a republic. That idea came only as mature 
fruit from the blossom of free thought, borne by the tree of liberty, 
planted so long before on American soil. They revolted from 
George III., not because he was a king, but because he was a des- 
pot. They threw off the rule of Great Britain, not because it was 
a monarchy, but because it was tyrannical. They became a re- 
public, as that seemed the only thing to do. No one thought of a 
monarch. The people had learned how to govern themselves, and 
their rulers needed none of the false dignity that " doth hedge 
about a king." The colonies, for nearly a century and a half, all 
unconsciously, had wrought out the idea of a republic. It now 
came as naturally as the rain and the dew from heaven. 

After the evacuation of Boston, Washington thought that 
probably the British would next try to seize New York, both on 
account of its commercial importance and the strong tory element 
in that vicinity. He therefore, soon after, came to that city. The 
most vigorous preparations were made to complete the fortifica- 
tions, already begun by General Charles Lee. Troops Avere en- 
listed for three years, and a bounty of ten dollars offered to 
encourage recruiting. About twenty-seven thousand men were 
finally collected. Little over half of these were fit for duty. One 
regiment, we read, had only ninety-seven firelocks and seven bay- 
onets. The officers, many of whom were grossly incompetent, 
wrangled about precedence. The soldiers mistook insubordina- 
tion for independence. Sectional jealousies prevailed to such a 
degree, that a letter of the times reports that the Pennsylvania 
and New England troops were quite as ready to fight each other 
as the enemy. 

The first of July, General Howe arrived at Staten Island from 
Halifax. Soon after, he was joined by his brother, Admiral Howe. 



At J^i 6 '] BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. 1 77 

from England, and Clinton, from the defeat of Fort Moultrie. 
They had thirty thousand men admirably disciplined and equip- 
ped ; among them about eight thousand of the dreaded Hessians. 
The fleet, consisting of ten ships-of-the-line, twenty frigates, and 
four hundred ships and transports, was moored in the bay ready 
to co-operate. Parliament had authorized the Howes to treat 
with the insurgents. By proclamation they accordingly offered 
pardon to all who would return to their allegiance. This docu- 
ment was published by direction of Congress, that the people 
might see what England demanded. An officer was then sent to 
the American camp with a letter addressed to " George Washing- 
ton, Esq." Washington refused to receive it. The address was 
afterward changed to " George Washington, &c, &c." The mes- 
senger endeavored to show that this bore any meaning which 
might be desired. But Washington utterly refused any communi- 
cation which did not distinctly recognize his position as com- 
mander-in-chief of the American army. Lord Howe was evi- 
dently desirous of a restoration of peace. He solicited an inter- 
view with Franklin, an old-time friend ; but events had gone too 
far. England would not grant independence, and the colonies 
would accept nothing less. War must settle the question. 

It was not till the last of August that Clinton crossed over the 
Narrows to Long Island. Brooklyn was fortified by a series of 
entrenchments and forts extending from Gowanus Bay to Wall- 
about. Here were stationed about eight thousand men under 
Generals Sullivan and Stirling. About two and a half miles south 
was a range of wooded heights traversed by three roads along 
which the British could advance ; one leading up directly from 
the Narrows and Gravesend to Gowanus Bay, a second from Flat- 
bush, and a third, the Jamaica road, cutting through the hills by 
the Bedford and the Jamaica passes. General Greene, who was 
intimately acquainted with the ground, being unfortunately sick, 
General Putnam was hastily sent over to take charge of the de- 
fence. General Stirling and General Sullivan occupied the heights, 
but, by a fatal oversight, the Jamaica road was unguarded. The 
English were not slow to take advantage of the opportunity. 

On the eve of the 26th, General Clinton, with Percy and Corn- 
wallis, crossed the narrow causeway called Shoemaker's Bridge, 
over a marsh near New Lots— where, it is said, a single regiment 
could have barred the way — and, before daylight, had seized the 
Bedford and the Jamaica passes, while the Americans were yet 
12 



i 7 8 



INDEPENDENCE YEAR. 



TAug. 27. 
L 1776. 



unconscious of his having left Flatlands. Meanwhile General 
Grant moved forward along the coast, on the direct road, from 
the Narrows up to the hills at present embraced in Greenwood 
Cemetery. Here there was considerable skirmishing, but Stir- 
ling held him in check. Clinton, 
pushing down from the hills, now 
fell upon the American left, at 
Bedford. The sound of cannon in 
their rear filled the Americans 
with dismay. At that moment 
De Heister, with the Hessians, 
who had already begun 
to skirmish on the Flat- 
bush road, stormed Sul- 
livan's position. Re- 
treat was the patriots' 
only hope. It was, 
however, too late. 
Caught between the 
Hessians and the Brit- 
ish, they were driven 
to and fro, cut down by 
the dragoons, or bayo- 
neted without mercy 
by the Hessians and 
the Highlanders, who 
listened to no plea for 
quarter. Some took to 
the rocks and trees, and 

sold their lives as dearly as they could ; some broke through and 
escaped, pursued by the grenadiers to the American lines at Fort 
Putnam ; the rest were captured. 

Cornwallis hurried on with his corps to close in upon General 
Stirling, who was yet unaware of the disaster upon his left, at the 
same time firing two guns as a signal for Grant to attack the 
front. Stirling, with a part of Smallwood's regiment, composed 
of the sons of the best families in Maryland, turned upon this 
unexpected foe in his rear, determined by a heroic sacrifice to 
give the rest a chance for escape. He accomplished his design ; 
all his companions crossed Gowanus Creek in safety ; but he, 
himself, was captured, and two hundred and fifty-nine of the 




*ffit'] 



BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. 



179 




PRISON-SHIP AT WALLABOUT. 



Marylanders lay dead on the field. Washington beheld the fight 
from a neighboring hill, and, wringing his hands in agony, ex- 
claimed, " What brave fellows I must lose this day ! " 

It was a sad augury for the Republic which had just issued 
its Declaration of Independence. The British loss was but 
four hundred and the American nearly one thousand. Of the 
latter, the larger part, with Generals Sullivan and Stirling, 
were prisoners. The higher officers were soon exchanged, 
but the hard lot 
of the privates 
and lower officers 
made the fate of 
those who per- 
ished in battle to 
be envied. Num- 
bers were con- 
fined in the sugar- 
house and the old 
hulks at Wall- 
about, where aft- 
erward so many 
other American prisoners suffered untold agonies. Here, fester- 
ing with disease, perishing with famine, and loathsome with filth, 
deprived of fresh air, water, and every necessary of life, eleven 
thousand Americans, it is said, found an untimely grave ere the 
war was over. 

Had Howe attacked the works at Brooklyn immediately, the 
Americans would probably have been utterly destroyed. Fortu- 
nately, he delayed for the fleet to co-operate ; but an adverse wind 
prevented. For two days the patriots lay helpless, awaiting the 
assault. On the second night after the battle there was a dense 
fog on the Brooklyn side, while in New York the weather was 
clear. A little before midnight, the Americans moved silently 
down to the shore and commenced to cross the river, near what is 
now the Fulton Ferry. Everything was planned with Washing- 
ton's peculiar precision. The guards, sentinels, and outer lines 
were ordered to remain quietly at their posts till the very last, that 
the enemy might suspect no movement. The stifled murmur of 
the camp, as each man took his place in silence for the march to 
the river-side, gradually died away in the distance. Suddenly the 
»-oar of a cannon burst upon the night-air. " The effect," says an 



i8o 



INDEPENDENCE YEAR. 



TAug^ 30, 



1776. 



American who was present, " was at once alarming- and sublime* 
If the explosion was within our own lines, the gun was probably 
discharged in the act of spiking it, and could have been no less a 
matter of speculation to the enemy than to ourselves." The 
mystery of that midnight gun remains still unexplained. Fortu- 
nately, it failed to rouse the British 
camp. Startled by this unexpected 
"^JVg contre -temps, the men reached the 

shore. Washington, feeling the ur- 
gent necessity for despatch, sent one 
?,. of his aides-de-camp to hurry up the 

troops in march. By mistake he gave 




the order to all who had been left 
behind. In the midst of embar- 
rassment and confusion at the 
ferry, caused by the change of 
tide and of wind, which beat back 
the sail -boats, the whole rear- 
guard arrived. " Good God ! 

General Mifflin ! " cried Washington, " I fear you have ruined us 
by so unseasonably withdrawing the troops from the advance 
lines." Mifflin somewhat warmly explained that he had only fol- 
lowed orders. " It is a dreadful mistake," exclaimed Washington; 



THE RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND. 



Al |776 '] RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND. l8l 

" and unless you can regain the picket lines before your absence 
is discovered, the most disastrous consequences may follow." 
Mifflin hastened back, but again the dense fog and Providence 
had favored them, so that though nearly an hour had intervened 
the desertion of their posts had not been noticed by the enemy 
At length their own time came, and the last boat pulled from the 
shore. The strain of the night was over and the army was saved. 
" What with the greatness of the stake, the darkness of the night, 
the uncertainty of the design, and the extreme hazard of the issue," 
says one, " it would be difficult to conceive a more deeply solemn 
scene than had transpired." 

This timely deliverance moved every pious American heart to 
profoundest gratitude, for if once the English fleet had moved up 
the East River and cut off communication between New York and 
Brooklyn, nothing could have saved the army from capture. 
Howe, not supposing an escape possible, had taken no precautions 
against such an event. It is said that a tory woman sent her 
negro servant to inform the British of the movements of the 
patriot army ; but he fell into the hands of the Hessians, who, not 
understanding a word of English, kept him until morning. After 
daybreak, and the fog had lifted, a British captain, with a handful 
of men, stealthily crept down through the fallen trees, and, crawl- 
ing over the entrenchments, found them deserted. 'A troop of 
horse hurried to the river and captured the last boat, manned by 
three vagabonds who had staid behind for plunder. 

Washington, conscious that, with the weakened and now dispir- 
ited army under his command, it was impossible to hold New 
York, wished to evacuate the city, but Congress would not con- 
sent. While awaiting the movements of Howe, Captain Nathan 
Hale of Connecticut consented to visit the English camp, and, if 
possible, find out their plans. He passed the lines safely and 
gained much valuable information, but on his return journey was 
recognized by a tory relative, who arrested him. He was taken 
to Howe's headquarters, and the next morning executed as a spy. 
No clergyman was allowed to visit him, nor was he permitted 
even a Bible in his last hours. His farewell letters to his mother 
and sister were destroyed. The brutality of his enemies did not, 
however, crush his noble spirit, for his last words were, " I only 
regret that I have but one life to give to my country." 

Having occupied Buchanan's and Montressor's islands, now 
Ward's and Randall's, Clinton, with a heavy body of troops, 



1 82 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ S *776 5, 

crossed the East River under the fire of the fleet early Sunday 
morning, September 15, and landed at Kip's Bay, at the foot of 
the present Thirty-fourth street. The American troops at this 
point fled from the entrenchments. It was all-important that the 
position should be held, as Putnam was in the city below with 
four thousand men, and time must be gained for them to escape. 
Washington came galloping among the fugitives and rallied them. 
But when two or three score red-coats came in sight, they broke 
again without firing a shot and scattered in the wildest terror. 
Losing all self-command at the sight of such cowardice, Wash- 
ington dashed forward toward the enemy, exclaiming, " Are these 
the men with whom I am to defend America ? " General Greene 
writes of this scene, that the poltroons " left His Excellency on the 
ground, within eighty yards of the enemy, so vexed at the infa- 
mous conduct of his troops that he sought death rather than 
life." He might indeed have fallen into the hands of the British, 
so overcome was he by the dastardly conduct of his soldiers, had 
not an aide-de-camp seized his horse by the bridle and hurried 
him away. Rallying his self-possession, Washington hastened to 
look after the safety of the rest of the army. It was a moment 
of extreme peril. Fortunately, on landing, Howe, Clinton, and 
some others called at the house of Robert Murray for refresh- 
ments. The owner, who was a Quaker, was absent, but his wife, 
a staunch whig, regaled them with such an abundance of cake 
and wine, and listened with such admirable attention to their 
humorous descriptions of her countrymen's panic, that their appe- 
tite and vanity got the better of their judgment, and kept them 
long at her delightful entertainment. Meanwhile, Putnam was 
hurrying his men along the Bloomingdale road, not a mile distant, 
under a burning sun, through clouds of dust, and liable at any 
moment to be raked by the fire of the English ships anchored in 
the Hudson. Thanks to the wit of the good Mrs. Murray, the 
British troops came up only in time to send a few parting shots 
at their rear-guard. Washington collected his army on Harlem 
Heights. 

That night the wearied troops lay on the open ground, in the 
midst of a cold, driving rain, without tent or shelter. Anxious to 
encourage his disheartened men, Washington, the same evening, 
ordered Silas Talbot, in charge of a fire-ship in the Hudson, to 
make a descent upon the British fleet. Accordingly, this brave 
captain, dropping down with the tide, steered his vessel alongside 



S< I776. 6 '] OCCUPATION OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. 1 83 

the Renomme. Stopping to grapple his antagonist surely, and 
to make certain of firing the trains of powder, he was himself 
fearfully burned before he could drop into the water. It was an 
awful scene. The British ships poured their broadsides upon his 
little boat as he was rapidly rowed away, while huge billows of 
flame bursting out from the fire-ship lighted up the fleet and the 
harbor with terrible distinctness. From every side boats put off 
to the rescue of the endangered vessel, which was finally brought 
safely away. But the entire British fleet slipped their moorings 
and quitted the stream. 

Early the next morning, the advance guard of the British de- 
scended into Harlem Plains, drove in the American pickets, and 
sounded their bugles as if in defiance. Washington rode to the 
outpost, near where is now the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and 
made his preparations to teach them a lesson. Engaging their 
attention by a skirmish in front, he sent Colonel Knowlton and 
Major Leitch to march around through the woods and cut off their 
retreat. A spirited contest ensued. The enemy were driven 
back upon the main body with great loss, while the Continentals 
suffered little. The success, however, was saddened by the death 
of both the commanding officers, killed in the moment of triumph- 
antly leading to victory the troops who the day before had fled so 
ignominiously. 

The British, on their entry into New York, were received 
by the tories with the greatest enthusiasm. Scarcely had they 
settled down in what they hoped would be snug winter-quar- 
ters, when a fire broke out, which destroyed about five hundred 
houses. The whigs were. accused of the incendiarism, and the 
enraged soldiers, with their bayonets, actually tossed several per- 
sons into the flames. They also hanged up one man by his heels 
until he died, discovering afterwards, however, that he was a 
staunch loyalist. 

Washington immediately took great pains to fortify his posi- 
tion on Harlem Heights, throwing up a series of entrenchments 
reaching from Harlem River to the Hudson, and protecting the 
right wing by Fort Washington. The army, however, was in a 
desperate condition. The term of service being nearly expired, it 
seemed on the eve of dissolution. The disheartened troops aban- 
doned their colors by hundreds ; whole regiments even returning 
to their homes. The Connecticut militia was reduced from six 
thousand to two thousand. "Among many of the subordinate 



1 84 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [° Ct i776. 28, 

officers," says Lossing, "greed usurped the place of patriotism. 
Officers were elected on condition that they should throw their 
pay and rations into a joint-stock for the benefit of a company ; 
surgeons sold recommendations for furloughs for able-bodied men 
at sixpence each, and a captain was cashiered for stealing blankets 
from his soldiers. Men went out in squads to plunder from friend 
or foe, and immorality prevailed throughout the American army." 
The soldiers, too, had lost confidence in their principal officers, 
Washington alone commanding their fullest respect and unwaver- 
ing devotion. The men were true to him, and he was true to 
duty. He was already fast becoming the hope of the country. 

General Howe, unwilling to attack the American army in its 
strong position on Harlem Heights, determined to get in its rear. 
Leaving his own lines in front of New York well defended, he ac- 
cordingly moved up the Sound, and disembarked his troops at 
Throg's Point, Westchester county, while his fleet passed up the 
Hudson to cut off all communication with the western bank of the 
river. Washington was prepared for this movement, which he 
had already foreseen, and immediately ordered troops to occupy 
the causeways leading out from the little peninsula on which the 
British were encamped. The bridge being removed, and his ad- 
vance thus cut off, Howe crossed in his boats to Pell's Point (Pel- 
ham), and landing again, moved toward New Rochelle, where he 
was joined by the Hessians under Knyphausen. ' He now decided 
to occupy White Plains. Meanwhile, Washington had evacuated 
Manhattan Island, and, crossing to Fordham Heights, marched 
northward to head off the British. " The modern Fabius " kept 
his army on the high hills along the western bank of the Bronx, 
occupying in succession a series of entrenched camps reaching 
to White Plains, a distance of thirteen miles. The two armies 
marched parallel to each other, and there were frequent skir- 
mishes between the outposts, in which Washington took care that 
the Americans, who were now in fine spirits, should have the ad- 
vantage. Moving on the shorter line, Washington was the first 
to reach White Plains, where he threw up breastworks, meanwhile 
preparing an entrenched camp in his rear on the heights of North 
Castle. Howe, coming up, threw a part of his troops across the 
Bronx, and carried Chatterton's Hill. The patriot militia under 
McDougal held their rude breastworks over an hour, and then 
retreated in good order to the main line. The apparent strength 
of Washington's entrenchments, which consisted, it is said, in part, 



Oct. 31, 
1776. 



OPERATIONS IN THE HIGHLANDS. 



185 



HUDSON RIVER Southern Pan. 



of heaps of cornstalks covered with dirt and sod, caused Howe to 
await his reinforcements under Lord Percy. 

On the night of the 31st, amid a tempest of wind and rain, 
Washington quietly fell back upon the Heights of North Castle. 
On this formidable position, Howe dared 
not risk an assault, but withdrew to 
Fordham Heights. Washington, ap- 
prehending that the British would next 
carry the war into the Jerseys, and per- 
haps move on Philadelphia, crossed the 
Hudson and fixed his head-quarters in 
the Highlands, leaving General Lee at 
North Castle with about seven thou- 
sand men, until Howe's movements 
were more fully developed. 

During the encampment at White 
Plains an incident occurred which curi- 
ously illustrates the character of General 
Lee, then the most admired officer in 
the army, and whose coming had been 
looked for as that of " a flaming angel 
from heaven." The story is thus told 
by Sears : General Lee lodged in a small 
house, near which General Washington 
occasionally passed when observing the 
dispositions of the enemy. One day, 
accompanied by some of his officers, he 
called on General Lee and dined with 
him ; but no sooner was he gone than 
Lee, addressing his aide-de-camp, said : 
" You must look me out another place, 
for I shall have Washington and all his 
puppies continually calling upon me, 
and they will eat me up." Next day, 
seeing the commander-in-chief and his 
suite coming that way, and suspecting 
another visit, he ordered his servant to 
write on the door with chalk, " No victuals dressed here to-day." 
Perceiving this inscription, General Washington and his officers 
rode off, not a little amused at the incident and the oddities of 
Lee's character. 




Smite of American Army. Ill 
Route of British Army. ODD 



1 86 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ N |°776. 6 ' 

The scene now shifts to Fort Washington on the banks of the 
Hudson. A little force of three thousand men was here 
environed by the enemy in overwhelming numbers. Washington 
had been opposed to holding this post after the retreat of the 
Continental army, but Congress urged that it must be maintained, 
and General Greene, who was in command at Fort Lee, fully 
acquiesced in this view. Washington most reluctantly yielded 
his own opinion. On the eve before the final attack by the 
British, he was crossing the river to personally inspect the forti- 
fications, when he met Generals Greene and Putnam. They 
assured him that " the men were in high spirits and all would be 
well." It was already too late to evacuate the fort. Howe's 
plans were complete. 

The advanced line of entrenchments before the fort was about 
seven miles long and weakly defended. Early on the morning of 
November 16th, this was attacked at four different points. The 
Americans, though outnumbered five to one, made a gallant 
defence, but Cornwallis carried Laurel Hill ; Percy and Stirling 
on the south swept all before them ; while on the north, Knyphau- 
sen and Rail with the Hessians, clambering up the heights, catch- 
ing hold of branches and bushes, pushing through the under- 
brush, and tearing away the fallen trees, under a murderous fire, 
pressed to within one hundred paces of the fort and demanded its 
surrender. Washington, who was watching the fight from Fort 
Lee, " wept with the tenderness of a child " as he saw his men, 
while begging for quarter, bayoneted by the brutal Hessians. 
He sent over word, promising to bring off the garrison in the 
night if they could only hold out till then ; but there was no 
hope. Magaw, the commander, could get but half an hour's 
delay. The troops crowded into the fort were disheartened, and 
would no longer man the ramparts. The American flag was 
hauled down. Though the garrison had lost but one hundred 
and fifty men and the British five hundred, yet twenty-six 
hundred prisoners were given up, with artillery and stores which 
were invaluable to the patriot cause. 

Washington now turned all his thought to the probable cam- 
paign in New Jersey. He gave orders to immediately evacuate 
Fort Lee, as the plan of preventing the English fleet from ascend- 
ing the Hudson was now defeated by the capture of the more im- 
portant fort. Greene, however, was too slow. November 20th, 
Cornwallis crossed the Hudson, with a strong detachment, five 



N ° V " 2 {7 t 7 6. DeC " 8 '] RETREAT THROUGH NEW JERSEY. 1 87 

miles above Fort Lee, his marines dragging his cannon up the 
steep ascent to the top of the Palisades. A countryman brought 
the news to Greene, who sprang from his bed and took to flight 
with his men, leaving behind them tents standing, blankets un- 
rolled, and camp kettles over the fire. Washington, hearing of 
the danger, seized the bridge across the Hackensack, and covered 
the retreat so that all the fugitives, except a few stragglers, escaped. 

For eighteen long, weary days, Washington and his shattered 
army continued to fall back before the conquering forces of Corn- 
wallis. Many of the patriots had no shoes, and their footsteps on 
the frozen ground were traced in blood. There were but three 
thousand men in all, on a level country, with no entrenchments, 
and not a tool for throwing up defences. Newark, New Bruns- 
wick, Princeton, and Trenton, marked the successive stages in 
this bitter flight. The advance of Cornwallis entered Newark as 
Washington's rear-guard was leaving. At Brunswick, the term 
of service of the Jersey and Maryland brigades expired, and they 
refused to stay longer under the flag. At daybreak, December 1st, 
the disbanded soldiers scattered over the fields seeking the shelter 
of the woods, and the little remnant of the patriot army broke down 
the bridge over the Raritan, as Cornwallis's cavalry dashed into 
their late camp through the still smoking embers of their fires. 
At Princeton, Cornwallis was joined by Howe with fresh troops. 
The British unaccountably delayed here for seventeen hours. 
When they at last reached Trenton, December 8th, it was only to 
see across the deep, angry Delaware, the Continental rear watch- 
ing their approach. To cross was impossible, for, under Wash- 
ington's orders, every boat for seventy miles along the stream had 
been taken to the southern shore and placed under guard. 

During this march, messenger after messenger, order after 
order, had been sent to General Lee, to hasten from North Castle 
to the help of his commander-in-chief. Ambitious, flattered with 
the idea of a separate command, and with the praises of those who 
were continually contrasting his audacity with the caution of 
Washington, Lee lingered behind, hopeful of accomplishing some 
brilliant feat. It was not till December 4th that he crossed the 
Hudson. He then moved along by the British flank about twenty 
miles away, watching for a chance to " reconquer the Jerseys." 
But his presumption was soon to be bitterly punished. On the 
night of the 12th he stopped at Baskingridge with only a small 
guard. He did not breakfast till ten o'clock, and then tarried to 



INDEPENDENCE YEAR. 



CNov. to Dec, 
1776. 



write to Gates a letter full of complaint and treason. It was not 
yet sealed when a cry of " The British ! " was raised. Instead of 
making an effort to escape, the coward came out, bareheaded, in 
slippers and blanket-coat, and begged for his life. The dragoons 
carried him off in this unsoldierly plight, without change, to their 
camp. Sullivan, who had now been exchanged, brought the army 
safely to the American quarters. Lee's reputation at this time 
was high, and when Congress learned that he was to be tried as a 
deserter, it set apart six British officers, then prisoners, to await 
his fate. This decided measure caused Lee to be released on 
parole. (December, 1777.) — Time has revealed the fact, however, 
that while in custody he offered to betray his adopted country. 

A carefully-prepared project for the con- 
quest of America, in Lee's handwriting, 
and endorsed by the secretary of the 
Howes, as " Mr. Lee's Plan," has lately 
been discovered in England, which con- 
clusively proves his treason. 

The condition of the country was now 
fearful in the extreme. New Jersey was 
overrun by the British army. The whigs 
were forced to hide where they could, and 
leave their families to the insults of a 
brutal soldiery. Houses, barns, and fences 
were burned, orchards cut down, crops 
and cattle carried off; women were sub- 
jected to every species of insult ; house- 
holds were plundered even of the cradles 
in which infants were rocked to sleep ; 
and " children, old men, and women were 
left in their shirts, without a blanket to 
cover them, under the inclemency of win- 
ter." Many of these families had printed protections, signed by 
order of the British commander; but they availed nothing. The 
Hessians could not, and the British would not, understand them. 
The former were utterly lawless. Without ceremony they entered 
dwellings, ordered the family out of their chairs at the breakfast, 
dinner, or supper table, and, seating themselves in their places, 
demanded the best the house could afford. Their appetite satis- 
fied, they roamed through the various apaitments, confiscating 
every article which caught their greed or fancy, with a simple 




HESSIAN GRENADIER. 



N ?776P'] CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. 1 89 

" Dis is goot for Hesse-man," and happy for the trembling in- 
mates if the visit was not concluded with personal indignities. 
De Heister was the " Arch-plunderer," and set the example to all 
his followers. He had even the meanness to advertise the house 
in which he lived in New York for public sale, although it had 
been voluntarily given him for his use by its owner, a true loyalist. 
Worse than all, the American soldiers, infected by the general 
demoralization, took upon themselves to sack the houses of tories 
and loyalists, so that, between both armies, no property was secure. 
Washington was finally compelled to issue orders imposing the 
severest penalties upon " any officer found plundering the inhabi- 
tants, under the pretence of their being tories." 

In November, Howe had issued a proclamation offering full 
pardon to every one who should within sixty days submit to the 
royal authority. It was well timed. For ten days after the 
issuing of this proclamation two or three hundred persons daily 
flocked to the royal camp to take the oath of allegiance to the 
king. Among them were distinguished persons ; as, for example, 
Samuel Tucker, who had been president of the Provincial Con- 
gress and a most trusted patriot. Even John Dickinson refused 
to accept from Delaware a seat in the Continental Congress. To 
deepen the gloom still more, Clinton, with four brigades and a 
fleet under Parker, sailed for Rhode Island and landed at New- 
port the day that Washington crossed the Delaware. That State 
was now entirely under their control. Troops that were destined 
for Washington were detained in New England, and several 
American armed vessels were kept blockaded in Providence 
River. Along the Delaware the British army, twenty-seven 
thousand strong, admirably equipped, was now reaching its 
advance posts opposite Philadelphia, and it was expected that the 
English fleet would soon ascend the river. Congress, alarmed, 
fled from Philadelphia amidst the jeers of tories and the maledic- 
tions of patriots. Howe had already written home, " Peace 
must be the consequence of our successes." No wonder that the 
hearts of men misgave them in this hour of trial. Yet there were 
still patriots whose hopes were bright and whose courage stood 
high. John Adams wrote, " I do not doubt of ultimate success." 
Washington remained calm and unmoved, and his serene patience 
touched the hearts of all. Misfortune only mellowed and ripened 
his magnificent faith, and in all that he said or did there seemed 
an inspiration. 



I90 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. U^nief' 

It was in the midst of winter ; the English had gone into can- 
tonments reaching from Brunswick to below Burlington. Howe 
was in New York, where all was now as merry as a marriage- bell. 
British and Royalist vied in making the city gay with festival and 
flag, in honor of the approaching decoration of Lord Howe as 
Knight of the Bath, conferred upon him in return for his distin- 
guished services. The officers in their comfortable quarters were 
arranging to pass away the idle hours in theatrical performances 
for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the war. Cornwallis, 
thinking the war over, had sent his baggage on board a vessel to 
return home. Throughout the British army there was the pro- 
foundest contempt for the Americans. Grant, who was left in 
command of Cornwallis's division, declared that with a corporal's 
guard he could march anywhere in the Jerseys. " Washington's 
men," he wrote, " have neither shoes, nor stockings, nor blankets ; 
they are almost naked, and are dying of cold and want of food." 
So he argued they were not to be feared. How little he realized 
the stuff of which patriots are made ! 

Rail, who was stationed at Trenton with about fifteen hundred 
men, principally Hessians, made light of a rumor that he was 
likely to be attacked. One of his officers having suggested that 
it would be well to throw up some works to provide against a 
possibility of assault, he laughed the idea to scorn. " An assault 
by the rebels ! Works ! pooh ! Let them come. We'll at them 
with the bayonet." " Herr Colonel," urged the more prudent 
major, " it will cost almost nothing, and if it does no good, it can 
do no harm." Rail only laughed the more heartily at such a 
ridiculous project, and, turning on his heel, sauntered off to hear 
the musicians, whom he kept almost constantly at their instru- 
ments for his own entertainment. " Whether his men were well 
or ill-clad, whether they kept their muskets clean or their ammu- 
nition in good order, was of little moment to him ; he never 
inquired about it ; but the music ! that was the thing ! the haut- 
boys — he never could have enough of them." 

Washington was resolved, as he said, " to clip the wings " of 
the Hessians, who, by their brutality and cupidity, had excited 
such universal detestation. The approaching Christmas, a time 
of general festivity among the Germans, offered a favorable op- 
portunity. The plans were carefully laid. Washington was to 
cross the Delaware about nine miles above Trenton, and, march- 
ing down the river, fall upon the troops at that place. Ewing, 



Dec. 25-26,1 
1776. J 



WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE. 



IQI 



with the Pennsylvania militia, was to cross a mile below the town, 
and, securing the bridge over the Assanpink, a creek flowing 
along the south, cut off the retreat of the enemy. General Gates 
was to take command of troops under General Putnam, Cadvval- 
Jader, and Colonel Reed, and, crossing at Bristol, to fall upon 
Count Donop at Bordentown. The night was dark and stormy, 
with sleet and snow ; the river angry and threatening, with cakes 




WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE. 



of grinding ice ; so bitter was the cold that two of the men were 
frozen stiff in death. Putnam was detained at Philadelphia by 
rumors of insurrection. Cadwallader, honest and zealous, came 
down to the river, but found the floating ice so thick that he sent 
back word he could not cross. Ewing did not even make an 
attempt. Reed, discouraged, went into the enemy's lines at Bur- 
lington, and, it is said, obtained a protection from Donop. Gates, 
impatient of control, disobeyed orders, and set out for Baltimore 
to intrigue with Congress. There was different stuff in Washing- 
ton and his officers. Here were Stark, Greene, Stirling, Sullivan, 
Knox, Monroe, Hamilton — heroes all. 

Just as they reached the river, a courier came announcing the 
failure of Gates. He had easily traced the track of the army by 
the blood on the snow from those whose shoes were broken. All 



I92 INDEPENDENCE YEAR. [ D f776. 6, 

the burden was on Washington, but there was no thought of turn- 
ing back. Anxious and troubled, he stood on the shore watching 
the boats as they were ferried across by Marblehead boatmen, the 
same who had brought the army over from Brooklyn on the 
eventful morning of August 30. 

It was gray twilight before the men and the guns were in line 
on the opposite bank. Then came nine miles march through the 
howling storm. Sullivan led his men by the river ; Washington 
conducted another column along the upper Pennington road. 
The former, finding that the arms of his men were wet, sent a 
messenger to Washington to report the fact. The orderly re- 
turned, dismayed by the sudden reply he had received, to "go 
back and tell his general to use the bayonet." They were near 
the town. It was broad daylight. But the storm had driven even 
the sentries inside. As Washington approached the village, he 
hailed a wood-chopper by the roadside, and asked, " Which way 
is the Hessian picket?" " I don't know," was the surly reply. An 
officer interposed, " You may tell ; this is General Washington." 
Dropping his axe, and raising his eyes to heaven, the patriot 
laborer exclaimed, " God bless and prosper you ! The picket is in 
that house, and yonder stands the sentry." The advance rushed 
forward. There was a shout, " Der feind ! der feind ! Heraus ! 
heraus !" (The enemy ! Turn out !) The tardy sentries sought 
to make a stand, but the rush swept them along. Just then there 
came the sharp rattle of Sullivan's guns from the lower town. 
The drums beat the alarm. The town was in an uproar. The 
Hessians, aroused, flew to arms, some firing from the windows, 
and some hastily forming their ranks. The British light horse 
and about five hundred Hessians and Chasseurs fled by the bridge 
across the Assanpink. 

Rail had received word the day before that he would be at- 
tacked that night, and about dusk a party had come swiftly out 
of the woods, and, firing upon one of his pickets, departed. He 
had ordered his men into their ranks, strengthened the outposts, 
and himself scoured the woods. Finding nothing, and thinking 
this all that there was to be, he had gone to a Christmas supper and 
spent the night in card-playing, drinking, and revelry. At early 
dawn a messenger came from a tory with a note bearing news of 
the crossing of the river by the American forces. The negro ser- 
vant, obeying his master's orders, refused him admittance. Know- 
ing the importance of the message, he prevailed on the servant to 



D nJ6. 6 '] BATTLE OF TRENTON. 



193 



carry the note to the officer. Rail, on receiving it, excited by 
wine and the play, thrust it unopened into his pocket. But now 
came a different warning. The rattle of the guns was not to be 
mistaken. Only half sobered by the sudden surprise and the 
bitter cold, he attempted to rally his men. Captain Washington 
and Lieutenant Monroe rushed forward with a party and cap- 
tured the guns in front of his quarters, as the gunners stood with 
lighted matches in their hands ready to fire. Washington and 
Sullivan had now joined forces, and Forest's battery of six guns 
was opened upon the dismayed Hessians at only three hundred 
paces. Washington, himself, was in front directing every move- 
ment. Rail, however, extricated his men and drew them up in an 
orchard east of the village. By a quick movement, Hand's regi- 
ment of riflemen was thrown on his rear. Even now, with a des- 
perate resolve, he might have cut his way out ; but he could not 
think of fleeing from his despised foes, and the Hessians were loath 
to give up the booty they had collected in their quarters. The 
word was given to charge. In the midst Rail was struck by a ball 
and fell from his horse. His troops, quickly hemmed in by the ex- 
ulting Americans, surrendered. It was an hour of triumph. " The 
Lord of hosts," wrote the praeses of the Pennsylvania German 
Lutherans, " heard the cries of the distressed, and sent an angel 
for their deliverance." Washington, overwhelmed by supreme 
joy, clasped his hands and raised his eyes gleaming with thankful- 
ness to heaven. Nearly one thousand prisoners, twelve hundred 
small arms, six guns, and all the standards of the brigade, were 
the trophies of this victory. Had the other detachments carried 
out the part assigned to them, there would have been a complete 
capture at Trenton, while the various posts along the Delaware 
would have shared the same fate. 

Washington dared not stay in the quarters so hardly won, 
as the enemy, alarmed by the fugitives from the battle, would 
soon gather. Before leaving Trenton, however, accompanied 
by Greene, he visited Rail. Here the soldier was lost in the 
Christian, and the dying hours of the Hessian officer were 
soothed by the sympathy of his generous foe. " The remem- 
brance of the deed," says Lossing, " seems to play, like an electric 
spark, around the pen of the historian while recording it." Back 
through the same storm amid which it had come the little army 
now toiled, conveying its prisoners and spoils. Another night of 
peril and hardships in recrossing the river brought them again to 

13 



194 



INDEPENDENCE YEAR. 



TDec, 
LI776. 



their old camp, after an absence of forty hours. Stirling and half 
the men were disabled by the exposure. 

This daring stroke gave a new impulse to the cause of liberty. 
The prestige of invincibility which had hitherto preceded the 




WASHINGTON S VISIT TO GENERAL RALL. 



Hessians was broken. Those who had grown lukewarm now 
became ardent again. Tories were depressed. The general 
whom all thought so slow was found to be bold and dashing 
when the proper opportunity arrived. Howe, alarmed, sent 
Cornwallis with reinforcements back into Jersey for a winter 
campaign. "All our hopes," said Lord George Germain, "were 
blasted by the unhappy affair at Trenton." News of the victory 
having reached Congress, the president attempted to announce 
the fact, but broke down, and could only call upon the secretary 
to read Washington's modest despatch. 

Meanwhile, Washington's hands had been strengthened by 
Congress. He was made virtually a dictator for six months, 
being authorized to remove any officer under brigadier-general, 
to fill any vacancy, to seize supplies for the use of the army, to 



Dec, "1 
1776. J 



STATE OF THE FINANCES. 



195 



arrest the disaffected, and to raise troops at his discretion. The 
regiments whose time expired the first of January were induced 
to remain by a bounty of ten dollars to each man. The military 
chest was empty, but Washington applied to Robert Morris, the 
rich patriot merchant of Philadelphia, who had just sent up to 
the commander-in-chief a small sum of " hard money," namely, 
four hundred and ten Spanish dollars, two crowns ten shillings 
and sixpence in English coin, and a French half-crown. The exi- 
gencies now required a large amount, and Morris was at a loss 
how to meet the sudden demand. The records of the time tell 
how, on New-Year's morning, he went from house to house, 
rousing the inmates from their beds, to borrow money. He had 
no success ; but at last, while walking home from his office 
anxiously considering the case, he met a wealthy Quaker, to 
whom he imparted the state of affairs. " Robert, what security 
canst thou give?" asked the Quaker. " My note and my honor," 
said Morris. " Robert, thou shalt have it," was the reply ; and 
the next morning the sum of fifty thousand dollars was on its way 
to Washington. 




ROBERT MORRIS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THMfD YEA® OF THE (REVOLUTION— 1777. 




IHE year dawned brightly for the 
new Republic. The term, " Great 
news from the Jerseys," now grew 
into a popular saying. Wide- 
spread was the panic among the 
British troops. December 25th, 
General Griffin, with some Penn- 
sylvania militia, finding he was 
too weak to join in the proposed 
attack, and wishing to do some- 
thing in the good cause, managed 
to decoy Donop and the Hessians 
off on a fruitless chase as far as 
Mount Holly. There he left them to find their way back as best 
they could. On the 27th, Cadwallader crossed the Delaware. 
He was accompanied by Colonel Reed, who had become a warm 
patriot again, and was ever after the friend and confidant of 
Washington. They found Burlington, Bordentown, and other 
posts deserted, the British having fled precipitately. All along 
the road the inhabitants were busy tearing down the red rags — 
tory signals — from their doors. 

Washington having given his men a brief rest, recrossed the 
Delaware and took post at Trenton. Here he managed to collect 
five thousand men, three-fifths of whom were merchants, mechan- 
ics, and farmers, who knew nothing of war, but, inspired with 
love of country, had left their warm firesides in the midst of 
winter to lie upon the ground without tent or shelter ; to march 
through snow and storm ; to encounter privation and danger, if 
only they could drive back the foe. 

Cornwallis was now pressing forward from Princeton with the 



J , a 7 n 7 ' 7 3 '] BATTLE OF PRINCETON. 1 97 

flower of the British army. His advance, annoyed by troops 
hidden in the woods who stubbornly disputed every inch of 
ground, was slow. At Trenton he found Washington's army 
drawn up behind the Assanpink, with the bridge, across which 
the cavalry escaped on the famous morning of December 26th, 
and all the neighboring houses and barns, strongly held. It was 
late. Sir William Erskine urged to storm the position that night, 
but Cornwallis replied that his troops were weary and he would 
" catch the fox in the morning." 

Washington's situation was perilous in the extreme. Before 
him was a powerful army, behind, an impassable river. To 
retreat was to give up Jersey to the enemy. If he stayed he could 
hardly hope for victory. He determined to sweep around the 
British left, by a circuitous route known as the Quaker road, to 
Princeton, where he presumed there were few troops remaining, 
and thence, perhaps, gain the English magazines at Brunswick. 
The army began to move at midnight. The roads, however, were 
muddy and the cannon could not be moved. Suddenly the wind 
veered, and within a few hours the ground everywhere became 
as hard as a pavement. To conceal the movement, men were set 
at throwing up earthworks near the bridge. The sentinels kept 
their posts until daybreak, heaping fuel on the blazing fires. 

About sunrise, having arrived near Princeton, Washington, 
with the main body, turned off by a nearer and side road to the 
college, while General Mercer, with his brigade, kept on along 
the Quaker road to the turnpike, where he was to break down the 
bridge over Stony Brook, and thus intercept any fugitives from 
Princeton and any reinforcements from Cornwallis at Trenton. 
Just then the British seventeenth regiment and the fifty-fifth 
regiment, Colonel Mawhood, had crossed the bridge en route for 
Trenton. Catching sight of the patriot guns gleaming in the 
sunrise, Mawhood hurried back with his regiment. Both par- 
ties rushed to secure an advantageous post on the high ground 
at the right, toward Princeton. The Americans, reaching it first, 
took position behind a fence, whence they opened fire upon the 
British. It was sharply returned. Mercer's horse fell under him. 
In the confusion Mawhood charged. The Americans, having no 
bayonets, broke. Mercer, while trying to rally them, was 
knocked down with the butt end of a musket, and, refusing to ask 
for quarter, but defending himself to the last, was repeatedly 
stabbed and left for dead, Just then Washington, hearing the 



198 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



TJan. 3, 
L 1777. 



guns, came to the rescue with the Pennsylvania militia, and, ral- 
lying the fugitives, led them to the charge. The raw troops 
wavered. Washington, dashing to the front within thirty paces 
of the enemy, reined in his horse just as both lines fired a volley. 
Fitzgerald, his devoted aide-de-camp, drew his cap over his eyes 
that he might not see the death of his beloved general. The 
smoke cleared away, and there still stood the commanding form 







THE DEATH OF GENERAL MERCER. 



of Washington, calm and imperturbable, as if 
on parade. " Thank God ! " exclaimed Fitz- 
gerald, " your excellency is saved ! " " Away, 
and bring up the troops ! The day is our 
own ! " cried the heroic commander, his eye 
ablaze with inspiration and resolve. Troops now coming up on 
every side, the British fell back, and it was only by their desperate 
valor and perfect discipline that they escaped over the fields and 
fences to -the Trenton road and across the brook. Washington, 
in the midst of the conflict, marked their superior control and 
exclaimed to his officers, " See how those noble fellows fight. 
Ah, gentlemen ! when shall we be able to keep an army long 
enough together to display a discipline equal to our enemies' ? " 

Meanwhile, the rest of the Americans had engaged the fifty- 
fifth and fortieth regiments, which had come up too late for the 
fight. Again, after a sharp contest, the British were defeated. 
A part fled to the Brunswick road, and the rest took refuge in 



J ,777?'] BATTLE OF PRINCETON. I99 

the college. The artillery opened upon them. The first ball, it 
is said, passed through the portrait of George II., hanging in the 
room used for a chapel, neatly taking off the monarch's head. 
Captain Moore and his brave companions soon broke open the 
door, and the occupants were glad to surrender. The American 
loss had been trifling, except in officers, while that of the British 
was two hundred killed and wounded and two hundred and 
thirty prisoners. Washington, with his wearied men, did not 
dare to continue on to Brunswick, but turned toward Morris- 
town, where, among the rugged highlands, he would be safe from 
pursuit. 

That morning's light had revealed to Cornwallis the smoulder- 
ing watch-fires and the deserted camp of the Americans. No one 
could tell him whither his enemy had gone. Even the tories, 
usually so watchful, were at fault. He heard the guns at Prince- 
ton through the keen, frosty air, but mistook it for thunder. 
Erskine, however, was not deceived. He exclaimed, " To arms, 
General ! Washington has outgeneraled us. Let us fly to the 
rescue at Princeton." Chagrined at his blunder, and alarmed for 
the safety of his magazines at Brunswick, Cornwallis roused his 
men and hastened back toward Princeton. As his advance-guard 
came in sight of Stony Brook, they saw a party which Washing- 
ton had sent back under Major Kelly to tear down the bridge. 
Opening fire, they drove off the men ; but the major kept on 
chopping desperately at the log which held up the timbers, till at 
last it suddenly gave way, and he fell into the stream. Hastily 
scrambling out, he started to run, but his wet clothes impeded his 
progress, and he was afterward captured. Cornwallis could not 
stop to repair the bridge, and so, ordering his men into the water, 
they forded the swollen brook, and in their " mail of frozen 
clothes " hastened on to Princeton. 

Suddenly they were brought to a stand by a shot fired from a 
neavy thirty-two pounder in an entrenchment at the entrance of 
the village. Supposing the patriots to be there in force, he sent 
out horsemen to reconnoitre, and prepared to storm the battery. 
The cavalry found the gun deserted. It had been fired by a 
straggler from Washington's rear-guard. 

The delay at the brook and the breastwork had given time for 
the patriots to escape. Cornwallis, dejected and disheartened, 
went on to Brunswick. A bolder general might have pursued 
the Americans, but the British, just then, were in no mood for any 



200 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [^ 

rash enterprise against a general whose strategy had proved so 
superior to all their discipline and numbers. 

Meanwhile the patriot army was toiling forward, the men so 
weary from lack of food and sleep that they often dropped down 
on the frozen ground, and, sinking into a lethargic slumber, were 
aroused only by the blows and shouts of their companions. That 
night, chilled and half-clothed, with no tents or blankets, they lay 
in the woods at Somerset Court-House, an easy prey, had the 
enemy been at hand. 

These exploits won for Washington universal applause. He 
was declared to be the saver of his country. Europe rang with 
praises of the New World's general. Frederick the Great of Prus- 
sia declared that his achievements were the most brilliant of any 
recorded on the pages of history. Before the sixty days mentioned 
in Howe's proclamation had expired, Washington issued a counter 
one, commanding that all who had signed the British pardon 
should, within thirty days, either withdraw to the English lines 
or take the oath of allegiance to the United States, on pain of 
being held as common enemies. The excesses of the British army 
had aroused the bitterest hatred. The day of deliverance seemed 
now to have come, and all classes were animated with the hope of 
" expelling these infamous robbers." Armed men sprang up as if 
from the ground. Foraging parties were everywhere cut off, and 
soon the British dared not venture outside their lines. The day 
Washington reached Morristown, one Oliver Spencer, with some 
New Jersey militia, routed an equal body of Hessians, taking 
thirty-nine prisoners. The same afternoon, Governor Clinton, 
coming down with a small force from Peekskill, captured Hack- 
ensack, the garrison making a speedy flight. General Maxwell 
took Elizabethtown and one hundred prisoners. General Dickin- 
son, with four hundred raw volunteers, forded the river near Som- 
erset Court-House, and attacked a foraging party, taking several 
prisoners, forty wagons, and one hundred English draught horses. 
Before the close of January the British held only Brunswick, Am- 
boy, and Paulus Hook. 

From the beginning of the war there had been hopes of obtain- 
ing aid from Europe. The French were especially well disposed 
to the Americans, partly because of hatred to England, and partly 
of a love for liberty which was gaining ground among the people 
of that country. In 1776, Silas Deane, of Connecticut, had been 
sent as commissioner to France. He accomplished little, however. 



ffij] FRANKLIN AT THE FRENCH COURT. 201 

He sent back only about fifteen thousand old muskets, and was 
strongly suspected of misappropriating the public funds. He 
was afterward followed by Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee. 
The former, already noted as a philosopher, in his quaint Quaker 
garb, calf-skin shoes tied with leather strings, and his plain, repub- 
lican manners, was a novelty in high French circles. His wit, his 
sturdy common sense, and his fascinating conversation, attracted 
universal admiration, and he instantly became the lion of the day. 
The fashionable world went crazy over the strange American, who 
was formally presented to the king in a plain Manchester velvet 
coat — the same which he had worn in England when he appeared 
before the Privy Council as agent for Massachusetts — white stock- 
ings, with spectacles on his nose, a white hat under his arm, and 
his thin gray hair quite innocent of powder. When he visited the 
theatre or opera, the brilliant audiences rose to receive and greet 
him with wild applause. Elegant fetes were given in his honor, 
and of three hundred lovely women, the most beautiful was chosen 
to crown his gray hairs with a wreath of laurel and salute his 
cheeks with a kiss. Franklin modestly accepted all these ex- 
travagant attentions as offered only through him to his beloved 
country. 

He soon secured a promise of secret assistance. Fifty-six 
thousand hogsheads of tobacco were to be furnished the agents 
of the French government, upon which an advance of a million 
francs was obtained. More than twenty thousand stands of arms 
and one thousand barrels of powder reached America during 
the ensuing campaign. Quite as valuable were the gallant volun- 
teers who espoused our cause and came across the ocean to help 
fight the battles of freedom. 

Marquis de Lafayette, at a banquet given in honor of the 
brother of the English king, first heard the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The effect upon him was quite contrary to that intended. 
Won by its arguments, he from that time joined his hopes and 
sympathies to the American side. Yet, how was he to aid it? 
The French nobility, though heartily disliking England, did not 
endorse the action of her colonies. He was not yet twenty years 
of age ; he had just married a woman whom he tenderly loved ; 
his prospects at home for honor and happiness were bright. To 
join the patriot army would take him from his native land, his 
wife, and all his coveted ambitions, and would lead him into 
a struggle that seemed as hopeless as its cause was just. But 



202 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



TApnl 25 
L 1777. 



his zeal for America overcame all this. Other difficulties now 
arose. His family objected ; the British minister protested ; the 
French king withheld his permission. Still undaunted, he pur- 
chased a vessel, fitted it out at his own expense, and, escaping the 
officers sent to detain him, crossed the ocean. Arriving at Charles- 
ton, he hastened to Philadelphia, and, offering himself to Congress, 
asked permission to serve as a volunteer without pay. A few 
days after, his acquaintance with Washington began, which soon 
ripened into a tender and intimate friendship. 

Baron de Kalb accompanied Lafayette. He was a French 
officer of skill and experience, and received the appointment of 
major-general in the Continental army. He proved a valuable 
officer, and met a glorious death amid the rout at Camden. 




BARON DE KALB. 



KOSCIUSKO. 



Kosciusko, a Pole of noble birth, was commended to Washing- 
ton by Franklin, and offered himself " to fight as a volunteer for 
American independence." " What can you do ?" asked the com- 
mander. " Try me," was Kosciusko's laconic reply. Washington 
was greatly pleased with him, and made him his aid. He became 
a colonel in the engineer corps, and superintended the construc- 
tion of the works at West Point. 

Count Pulaski, a Polish officer who had performed many 
daring exploits during the struggles of his native country for 
liberty, entered the service of the United States this year. 
" Pulaski's American Legion " afterward won great renown and 
did excellent service. 

The English government was now making every exertion to 
fill up the army for the ensuing campaign. The most reliance 



Ma^-June,] ENGLISH PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN. 203 

was placed upon the Hessians ; but the German princes met with 
great difficulty in supplying recruits. The cause was unpopular 
among the people, and desertions were numerous. Officers 
picked up men anywhere they could find them. Foreigners, vag- 
abonds, and loose fellows — even unprotected travelers were forced 
into the ranks. Troops had to be driven on shipboard at the 
point of the bayonet. The regiments of Anspach, for example, 
could not be trusted with arms or ammunition. When it came to 
embarking, the guard was unable to get them aboard, and the 
landgrave himself was sent for in all haste. He personally took 
the place of driver, and, by the power of his traditional authority, 
at last succeeded in forcing the reluctant and rebellious soldiers 
into the boats. Frederick of Prussia, we are told, was disgusted 
with this whole mercenary scheme. Metternich, as the repre- 
sentative of the Austrian court, reclaimed the subjects of that 
country. Thus the English army secured only about enough 
Hessians to make up the loss at Trenton. 

The most flattering proposals were made to induce the cap- 
tured American sailors to enlist in the British navy. The reply 
of one of them, Nathan Coffin, is worthy of immortality, " Hang 
me to the yard-arm of your ship if you will, but do not ask me to 
become a traitor to my country." 

Enlistments among the tories were encouraged. Tryon, who 
was a fitting tool, was put in charge of this detestable work. 
Commissions were issued freely. De Lancey of New York and 
Skinner of New Jersey were made brigadiers. It was a common 
boast of the loyalists that as many of the inhabitants of the States 
were taken into the pay of the crown as into that of Congress. 
This was doubtless an exaggeration, yet Sabine, in his " Loyalists 
of the American Revolution," estimates twenty-five thousand as a 
low figure for the total number who thus not only proved recreant 
to the cause of liberty, but took up arms against it in the service 
of the tyrant. 

The tomahawk and scalping-knife were also called in to aid 
the king in this emergency. The entire frontier, it was hoped, 
would resound with the war-whoop, as in the terrible days of 
Philip and Pontiac. The merciful provisions of Sir Guy Carle- 
ton, in command in Canada, for the employment of the Indians, 
were revoked. " The Ottawas, the Chippewas, the Wyandottes, 
the Shawnees, the Senecas, the Delawares, and the Pottawato- 
mies," wrote the secretary, Lord Germain, " are no longer to be 



204 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ J |^ 7 '; 

restrained." The employment of such allies was severely de- 
nounced by the opposition in the British parliament. " If I were 
an American, as I am an Englishman," exclaimed Pit', in an 
eloquent speech on the subject, " while a foreign troop was landed 
in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never, never, 
never! " 

This year witnessed the first celebration of the signing of the 
Declaration of Independence. The Pennsylvania Journal of that 
date gives a glowing description of the festivities in Philadelphia. 
The firing of salutes, music from the Hessian band taken at Tren- 
ton, feux dejoie from a corps of British deserters, a congressional 
dinner with toasts for the living and the dead, and a military re- 
view, filled up the day. In the evening there were the ringing 
of bells and an exhibition of fireworks — the latter beginning and 
ending with the flight of thirteen rockets. " Thus," says the 
writer, " may the Fourth of July, that glorious and ever-memo- 
rable day, be celebrated through America by the sons of freedom 
from age to age, till time shall be no more. Amen and Amen! " 

George III., we are told, was interested in the minutest detail 
of the American war. The plan for the campaign of 1777, which 
was adopted in his closet, was for General Howe to take care of 
Washington and his army and seize Philadelphia ; General Bur- 
goyne was to move from Canada by the old French and Indian 
war route up Lake Champlain, while Clinton was to ascend the 
Hudson from New York ; thus all intercourse between New Eng- 
land and the other States would be cut off, and the navigation of 
the Hudson secured. Burgoyne left Canada with a force of, per- 
haps, ten thousand British and Indians. Near Crown Point he 
gave a grand feast to the chiefs of the Six Nations, after which 
four hundred of their warriors took the war-path with the British 
general. Here a grandiloquent proclamation was issued, declar- 
ing how difficult it would be to restrain his savage allies in case 
any resistance should be offered to the progress of the royal forces 
under his command. 

At evening on the 1st of July, he appeared before Fort Ticon- 
deroga. St. Clair, who was in command at that point, had 
written not long before : " Should the enemy attack us they will 
•go back faster than they came." On the 5th, the British dragged 
a battery of heavy guns up Mount Defiance, on the opposite side 
of the outlet, which commanded both Ticonderoga and Fort Inde- 
pendence, but was supposed to be inaccessible to artillery. St. 



July 6,"i 
1777. J 



RECAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA. 



205 



Clair had no chance of defence. That night, with his garrison of 
three thousand men, he escaped in the darkness by land and water, 
taking only such stores as his boats could carry. The burning of 
his residence at Fort Independence by General De Fermoy, in vio- 
lation of express orders, revealed to the enemy what was trans- 
piring. General Fraser 
pushed on eagerly in pur- 
suit. Burgoyne, at day- 
break, took possession of 
the forts. It was the third 
time Fort Ticonderoga 
had been captured with- 
out bloodshed. 

At sunrise on the 7th, 
Fraser overtook the rear- 
guard of the Americans 
at Hubbardton while 
they were at breakfast. 
Fraser had only about 
eight hundred men ; while 
there were three regi- 
ments of • the Americans 
under Seth Warner, Fran- 
cis, and Hale. The last, with his men, retired in the direction of 
Castleton, and en route meeting a body of the British, surren- 
dered without resistance. Warner and Francis gallantly rallied 
the remainder, about seven hundred in number, and turning upon 
the British, seemed on the point of winning the day ; but Riede- 
sel, hearing the firing, came up with a body of Hessians, his 
music playing and his men singing a battle-hymn. The Ameri- 
cans were forced to give way. Francis, after having charged 
three times, was killed. Over one hundred fell and two hundred 
were taken prisoners. Those who escaped scattered through the 
woods. It was two days before Warner, with ninety men 
reached St. Clair. 

Meanwhile, Burgoyne sent a fleet up the lake. It overtook the 
American flotilla bearing the stores from Ticonderoga, just as, 
unsuspicious of danger, it moored in the harbor at Whitehall. 
The Americans blew up some of the galleys, abandoned the 
others with the bateaux, set fire to the buildings, and fled back 
to join General Schuyler at Fort Edward. A British regiment 




RUINS OF FORT TICONDEROGA. 



206 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [, J 7 '}ty 

pursued them as far as Fort Ann. The garrison of that post, 
under Colonel Long, consisted of about five hundred convales- 
cents and invalids. He gallantly came out to meet the enemy, 
and took post in a ravine about a mile in front of his works. The 
British recoiled from his sharp fire and retreated to a neighboring 
hill. Following them up, he would have utterly defeated them if 
his ammunition had held out. As it was, he inflicted a loss of 
fifty men. When the English came back with reinforcements, it 
was only to find the fort burned to the ground and the garrison 
escaped. 

The fall of Ticonderoga and the defeat of the army, with the 
loss of two hundred pieces of artillery, fell upon the country like 
a thunderbolt from the clear sky. " We shall never be able to 
defend a fort," wrote John Adams, " till we shoot a general." 
A ridiculous story obtained credence that Burgoyne had paid 
Schuyler and St. Clair for their treachery, in silver bullets fired 
into the American camp. Possibilities of Schuyler's treachery 
and reports of his cowardice and incapacity were freely circu- 
lated. 

The entire country between Whitehall and Fort Edward was 
a wilderness, traversed by a single military road leading through 
extensive woods and morasses and crossing many creeks. Bur- 
goyne, on his advance, found his path obstructed by fallen trees, 
broken-down bridges, and ruined causeways. Beyond this, 
Schuyler did nothing to prevent the British progress, and on the 
29th the cross of St. George was planted on the banks of the 
Hudson. During the march, the English army had built with 
infinite toil more than forty bridges and a log causeway over two 
miles long. This labor, under the hot sun of July, by men bur- 
dened with their equipments and annoyed by swarms of insects, 
had thoroughly exhausted their strength. There was no enemy, 
however, to dispute their way. Fort Edward could not be held, 
and the Americans retired, first to Saratoga, then to Stillwater, 
and finally to the islands in the Hudson at the mouth of the 
Mohawk. In spite of this timidity and lack of skill, Burgoyne's 
disastrous fate was fast unfolding itself. 

Before leaving Canada, he had sent Colonel St. Leger to 
ravage the Mohawk Valley, thus creating a diversion in his favor, 
and then to meet him at Albany. St. Leger had induced one 
thousand Indians to join his ranks as he marched southward from 
Oswego. With Brandt and his Mohawk Indians, Johnson and his, 



A , u # 7 ?'] BATTLE OF ORISKANY. 207 

tories, and Butler and his rangers, he laid siege to Fort Schuyler, 
late Fort Stanwix, now Rome. This was at that time the extreme 
western settlement of the State. It was a log fortification, built 
on rising ground, and held by two New York regiments under 
Gansevoort and Willett. 

General Herkimer, knowing that the fort was not provisioned 
or equipped for a siege, raised a body of militia from Tryon 
county, and set out for its relief. At Oriskany they fell into an 
ambuscade. While carelessly marching through the woods, 
"Johnson's Greens" attacked them in front and Brandt's Indians 
on both flanks. It was a true battle of the wilderness. The 
militia, royalists, and savages were soon so intermingled that 
there was no room to use fire-arms. The white man and Indian, 
wrestling in mortal conflict, striking with bayonet, hatchet, and 
hunting-knife, often fell in the shade of the forest, " their left hands 
clenched in each other's hair, their right grasping, in a grip of 
death, the knife plunged in each other's bosom." Herkimer was 
mortally wounded, but remained till the end giving orders and 
encouraging his companions. About four hundred of the Ameri- 
cans finally retreated to a knoll near by, where, from behind trees 
and logs, they held their ground until the Indians, suddenly 
shouting " Oonah ! Oonah ! " hastened back to save their camp. 

While this struggle was going on, Lieutenant-Colonel Willett, 
with a part of the garrison, had made a daring sally toward the 
scene of conflict. They drove all before them — rangers, tories, 
savages, and squaws. Hearing, however, of Herkimer's mis- 
fortune, they went back to the fort without losing a man, carry- 
ing with them kettles, furs, five flags, and a few prisoners. 

When the enemy first appeared, the garrison was without a 
flag, but with true American ingenuity, one had been straightway 
improvised. Shirts were cut up to form the white stripes, bits of 
scarlet cloth were sewed together to supply the red, and a blue 
cloth cloak served as a ground for the stars. Beneath this patch- 
work streamer they now proudly placed the colors they had won. 
" It was the first time," says Bancroft, " that a captured banner 
floated under the stars and stripes." 

It is interesting, in this connection, to notice the origin of our 
flag. In early times the English colonies naturally displayed the 
flag of the mother-country. We read that in 1636, however, 
Endicott, the governor of Massachusetts, cut out the cross of St. 
George as a " Romish symbol," and the king's arms were after. 



2o8 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ Jun i777" B 

ward substituted for this emblem, so obnoxious to the Puritans. 
In 1 65 1, with the commonwealth came a revival of the old standard 
of St. George. At the opening of the Revolution the colonies 
used a great variety of flags. At Bunker Hill it is probable there 
was no American banner flying. Considering themselves still a 
part of the British empire, the patriots frequently fought under 
the " Union Jack." While Washington was in command at 
Cambridge he raised a flag, called the " Great Union," which 
consisted of thirteen red and white stripes, having at the corner 
the cross of the English flag. The Americans carried this banner 
when they entered Boston after its evacuation by General Howe ; 
when they fled through New Jersey before the conquering 
enemy ; and when they crossed the Delaware 'mid snow and ice, 
and charged at Trenton in the early dawn. The vessels of the 
infant navy bore a white flag with a green pine-tree in the corner. 
The United States were free a long time before they assumed a 
distinctive flag. June 17th of this year Congress voted that "the 
flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate 
red and white, and the union be thirteen white stars in the blue 
field." The latter were arranged in a circle. Paul Jones, who 
afterward became famous, was the first to hoist the new flag over 
an American ship-of-war, he having previously displayed it to a 
crowd assembled on the banks of the Schuylkill, while he sailed 
up and down in a small boat, with the patriotic banner proudly 
unfurled. 

Finding that Fort Schuyler could not hold out much longer, 
Colonel Willett and a friend, Lieutenant Stockwell, determined to 
inform Schuyler of the situation. One dark, stormy night they 
crept from the entrenchments, passed through the camp, escaped 
sentinels and Indians, crossed the Mohawk on a log, and reached 
the American army in safety. 

Arnold, always ready for a desperate service, volunteered, 
with eight hundred men, to go to the relief. He accomplished 
his mission by a stratagem. A half-witted' boy, who had been 
taken prisoner, was promised his freedom if he would spread the 
report among St. Leger's troops that a large body of Americans 
was close at hand. Having cut holes in his clothes, he accord- 
ingly ran breathless into the camp of the besiegers, showing the 
bullet holes and describing his narrow escape from the enemy. 
When asked their number, he mysteriously pointed upward to 
the leaves on the trees. The Indians and British were so fright: 



Aug. 13, "I 
1777. J 



RELIEF OF FORT SCHUYLER. 



209 



ened that, though Arnold was yet forty miles away, they fled in a 
panic, leaving their tents and artillery behind them. 

Such was the difficulty of getting supplies through the wilder 
ness from Lake George, that after two weeks hard labor Burgoyne 
had only secured four days provisions. Learning that the Amer- 




THE ALARM AT FORT SCHUYLER. 



leans had collected a quantity of stores at Bennington, he sent 
Colonel Baum with about eight hundred Hessians, Canadians, and 
Indians to seize them, collect horses, recruit royalists, and thence 
rejoin the army at Albany. Fortunately, on the very day, August 
13th, that Baum set out, General Stark, who was in command of 
a brigade of New Hampshire militia, arrived at Bennington. He 
had just refused to join General Schuyler, on the ground that his 
troops were raised for the defence of the State, and he had been 
promised a separate command. This act of insubordination, which 
might have been fatal, now proved the salvation of the country. 
On receiving news of the approach of the British, Stark immedi- 
ately forwarded word to Colonel Warner to come to his aid with 
the Green Mountain Boys. Nearing Bennington, Baum discov- 
ered a reconnoitering party of Americans, and entrenching him- 
self on high ground in a bend of the Walloomscoick River, sent 
back to Burgoyne for reinforcements. The next day was so rainy, 
that all movements were prevented. 



2IO THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [*t¥ii?* 

During the night of the 15th a body of Berkshire militia ar- 
rived. Rev. Mr. Allen, of Pittsfield, and a large number of his 
church members were among them. This gentleman was burn- 
ing to display his patriotic zeal, and before daybreak, while the 
clouds were still pouring, he impatiently sought Stark. " Now, 
general," he said, " the Berkshire people have been called out 
several times before, without having a chance to fight, and if you 
do not give it to them this time, they will never turn out again." 
" Well," answered the general, with a secret satisfaction at the 
pluck of his troops, " do you wish to march now, while it is dark 
and raining ?" " No, not just this moment," was the reply. " Then 
just wait till the Lord gives us sunshine," returned Stark, " and if 
I do not give you fighting enough, I'll never ask you to come out 
again." 

The morning dawned clear, and both sides prepared for action. 
About noon, Stark developed his plan. Detachments were sent right 
and left to the rear of the enemy's main post on the heights. Baum, 
seeing men in their shirt-sleeves and with simple fowling-pieces 
collecting behind his camp, mistook them for country people, and 
thought nothing of it. Another detachment was then sent to Baum's 
right, while his attention was attracted by a feigned attack upon a 
tory entrenchment at the ford in front. At three o'clock the troops 
in the rear dashed up the hill. At the first volley Stark ordered a 
charge. As they reached the top they caught sight of the British 
lines forming for battle. " There are the red-coats," he shouted ; 
" we beat them to-day, or Betty Stark is a widow." On his men 
dashed, sweeping the tories before them. There was no flinching. 
With perfect confidence in their leader, though destitute of can- 
non, bayonets, and discipline, they closed in upon the Hessians on 
all sides. The sharp-shooters crept up within eight paces to pick 
off the cannoneers. The Germans fought with desperate valor, 
but their ammunition giving out, the militia scaled the works. 
Baum ordered his men to break out with bayonet and sword, but 
he was soon mortally wounded, and his men surrendered. The 
Indians had fled with horrible yells early in the day. 

Just as the battle was won, however, it seemed to be lost. The 
militia had dispersed to plunder the camp when Breyman came 
up with the reinforcements from Burgoyne. An hour earlier and 
they might have claimed the day. They now rallied the fugitives 
and pushed for Baum's entrenchments. At this moment Warner 
arrived with his regiment. Stark collected the militia, and again 



A ^77. 6 '] BATTLE OF BENNINGTON. 211 

the battle raged fiercely as ever. At sunset the Hessians ordered 
a retreat, leaving cannon and wounded. The exulting Americans 
followed them till night-fall. Darkness alone saved them from 
annihilation. The patriots lost only seventy all told, while the 
British loss was twice as great, besides about seven hundred 
prisoners. 

An incident illustrates the spirit of the men that day. One old 
man had five sons in the patriot army. A neighbor, just from the 
field, told him that one had been unfortunate. " Has he proved 
a coward or a traitor ?" asked the father. "O no; he fought 
bravely," was the answer; "but he has fallen." "Ah," said the 
father, " then I am satisfied." 

The flight of St. Leger and the defeat at Bennington aroused 
the people from their depression, and inspired them with hope of 
success. The atrocities committed by the Indians also did much 
to inflame them with hatred of a government which let loose upon 
them such savage foes. None of their bloody acts caused more 
general execration than the murder of Jane McCrea. This young 
lady was the betrothed of a Captain Jones of the British army. 
She lived near Fort Edward in the family of her brother, who, 
being a whig, started for Albany on Burgoyne's approach. But 
she, hoping to meet her lover, lingered at the house of Mrs. 
McNeil, a staunch royalist, and a cousin of the British General 
Fraser. Early one morning the house was surprised by Indians, 
who dragged forth the inmates and hurried them away toward 
Burgoyne's camp. Mrs. McNeil arrived there in safety. A short 
time after, another party came in with fresh scalps, among which 
she recognized the long, glossy hair of her friend. The savages, 
on being charged with her murder, declared that she had been 
killed by a chance shot from a pursuing party, whereupon they 
had scalped her to secure the bounty. The precise truth has 
never been known. This massacre was probably no more hor- 
rible than many others. But it was susceptible of embellishment, 
and everywhere produced a deep impression. Many patriots 
were led to join the army, and many royalists to desert a cause 
which permitted such atrocities. 

The New England troops were unwilling to serve under 
Schuyler, who seemed to have little confidence in them, and the 
militia consequently came in but slowly. Gates, who was am- 
bitious of a separate command, and who had been superseded 
by Schuyler in the charge of this department, was constantly 



212 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



[" Aug. -Sept., 
L 1777. 



intriguing to oust his rival. Congress lacked faith in Schuyler's 
Abilities, and, after the fall of Ticonderoga, even proposed to 
change all the higher officers of the northern army. Washington 
was desired to nominate a successor to Schuyler, but declined. 
With noble self-sacrifice, though he was himself confronted by a 
far larger army than was Schuyler, he sent him two brigades of 
iiis best troops, and ordered thither Morgan with his incompara- 
ble riflemen ; Lincoln, who was popular with the eastern militia ; 
and Arnold, famous for his desperate daring. He also wrote 
personally to the governors of the New England States, urging 
them to rally in this emergency. Soon the yeomanry began to 
pour into camp, all eager, even anxious, for a battle. Such was 
the dissatisfaction with Schuyler, that 
Gates was now appointed to take his *J^2£?L 
place. However much the former may 
have lacked the abilities of a great gen- 
eral, he proved 




MRS. SCHUYLER SETTING THE GRAIN-FIELDS ON FIRE. 



a true patriot. No spirit of jealousy at the success of his rival 
actuated him. He magnanimously threw all his influence in favoi 
of Gates, made known to him his plans and efficiently aided in 
their execution. His great heart had no more room for envy than 
for selfishness. During the retreat he had given orders to Mrs. 
Schuyler to set fire to his fields of grain at Saratoga, to prevent 
the possibility of their falling into the enemy's hands. 

Burgoyne's position was every day becoming more embarrass- 
ing. The Canadians and tories were discouraged. The Indians, 



8 '?77?'] FIRST BATTLE OF SARATOGA. 21$ 

indignant at the humane efforts Burgoyne had made to restrain 
their ferocity, were rapidly deserting. His misfortunes weighed 
like an incubus on the morale of the whole army. His instruc- 
tions, however, were positive. He expected Clinton had already 
ascended the Hudson to co-operate with him, and so, against the 
judgment of his best officers, determined to proceed. Provisions 
for about thirty days had been painfully gathered, and with his 
army of six thousand men, all veterans, splendidly equipped, and 
with a fine artillery, he promised yet to " eat his Christmas dinner 
in Albany." 

Meanwhile, the American army, at least ten thousand strong, 
well armed, burning with patriotism and eager for the fray, had 
advanced to Bemis's Heights, near Stillwater. Gates was unskil- 
ful, and perhaps cowardly, while Schuyler's friends were indig- 
nant at his displacement ; but Arnold, Morgan, Poor, Learned, 
Fellows, Dearborn, Ciliey, Cook, Scammel, Glover, and others 
were there, and no one in the patriot ranks had a doubt. Bur- 
goyne crossed the Hudson on the 13th and 14th, and encamped 
at Saratoga; but, delayed by bad roads and broken bridges, in 
four days he did not progress as many miles. It was not until the 
1 8th that he reached Wilbur's Basin, two miles from Bemis's 
Heights, and proposed to attack the Americans. Their position 
was a very strong one, and, under Kosciusko's direction, had 
been carefully fortified. The line of entrenchments was circular 
in form, with the right resting on the river and the left on a ridge 
of hills. About ten o'clock the next forenoon the British army 
advanced in three columns. The left wing, with the artillery 
under Phillips and Riedesel, was to move along the flat by the 
river ; Burgoyne himself commanded the centre ; and Fraser led 
the right by a circuit upon the ridge to attack the American left 
wing. Upon the front and flanks of the columns hung tories, 
Canadians, and Indians. Gates desired to await an attack. At 
the urgent solicitation of Arnold, however, he finally sent out 
Morgan with his riflemen and Major Dearborn with the infantry. 
The former passed unobserved through the wood, but driving 
back a party of Canadians and Indians too vigorously, he unex- 
pectedly came upon the main body of the English. His men 
were scattered, and for a moment he was left almost alone. A 
shrill whistle soon brought his sharp-shooters around him. Ciliey 
and Scammel coming to his aid with the New Hampshire regi- 
ments, a sharp contest ensued. The battle now lulled, Phillips 



214 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ S *?77, ft 

bringing up artillery on one side and Cook the Connecticut 
militia on the other. 

At three o'clock the struggle began again, not far from the 
same point. Gates had no plan ; there was consequently no 
manoeuvring. Both sides were on gentle eminences, partly shel- 
tered by wood, and out of gun-shot of each other ; between them 
was an open field. The British advanced to clear the wood of the 
Americans ; they sallied forth and drove the English from their 
guns, who, in turn, rallied. Thus the tide of battle ebbed to and 
fro. The cannon were taken and retaken several times. Too late 
to accomplish anything, Learned with a brigade went around to 
attack the British in the rear; but Riedesel with some Hessians 
climbed the hill and fell upon the American flank. Darkness now 
coming on, the patriots quietly drew back to their entrenchments. 
Twice during the evening, however, there were sharp skirmishes, 
and the last American did not leave the field until eleven o'clock. 
The English lay on their arms near by, and technically claimed 
the victory, though they had not gained their end, which was to 
dislodge the Americans from their position ; while the latter had 
gained theirs by preventing the British from advancing. Each 
side, however, took to itself the honor, and supposed that with a 
part of its forces it had beaten the whole of the hostile band. In 
fact, only about three thousand of either army were engaged. The 
American loss was not far from four hundred, and the English five 
hundred. The fire of the American riflemen was excessively 
annoying. They climbed the trees and picked off the English 
officers. A bullet designed for Burgoyne struck the arm of an 
aid who was just handing him a letter. In one battery three- 
fourths of the artillerymen were killed or wounded, and every 
officer save one was struck. 

The next morning Arnold urged that the work should be 
followed up, and Burgoyne's shattered forces be attacked at once 
before they had time to prepare entrenchments or to recover 
from their exhaustion. Gates resented the interference. A 
quarrel ensued, and Arnold demanded a pass to go to General 
Washington, which was granted. Seeing how discreditable it 
would be to leave just before a battle, Arnold finally remained in 
his tent, but without any troops, as the command of the right 
wing was given to Lincoln. 

For over two weeks both armies lay in their camps, which 
were only a cannon-shot apart, carefully fortifying themselves and 



nii:] SECOND BATTLE OF SARATOGA. 21 5 

watching an opportunity to catch each other at a disadvantage. 
Burgoyne's position was now perilous in the extreme. He had 
six or eight hundred sick and wounded in hospital ; his horses 
were weakened by work and want ; and he was forced to cut off 
one-third of the daily rations of his men. Patriot bands swarmed 
everywhere, breaking down bridges and harassing the pickets 
and foraging parties. Neither officer nor soldier dared to remove 
his clothes at any time, and the camp was in almost constant 
alarm. One night twenty young farmers, residing near by, 
resolved to capture the enemy's advance picket-guard. Armed 
with fowling-pieces, they marched silently through the woods 
until they were within a few yards of the station. They then 
rushed out from the bushes, the captain blowing an old horse- 
trumpet and the men yelling. There was no time for the senti- 
nel's hail. " Ground your arms, or you are all dead men ! " 
cried the patriot captain. Thinking that a large force had fallen 
upon them, the picket obeyed. The young farmers, with all the 
parade of regulars, led back to the American camp over thirty 
British soldiers. 

Burgoyne was in constant hope of being relieved by the 
promised expedition of Clinton up the Hudson River, as in that 
event Gates would necessarily send a part of his army to the 
defence of Albany. On the 21st Burgoyne received a letter in 
cipher from Clinton, stating that he was about to start. Greatly 
encouraged thereby, he replied that he could hold on till Novem- 
ber 1 2th. Every day, however, the net of his difficulties was drawn 
about him more and more tightly. The time came when he must 
either fight or fly. On the 7th of October he attempted a recon- 
noissance in force, in order to cover a large foraging party, and 
also, if opportunity offered, to turn the left of the American line. 
For this service fifteen hundred picked men were selected. Bur- 
goyne led them in person, and under him were Fraser, Riedesel, 
and Phillips. Marching out of camp, they formed in double ranks 
on a low ridge, less than a mile northwest of the American camp, 
and awaited events. Meanwhile the foragers were busy getting 
supplies, and the officers were scanning the patriot lines. 

Morgan with his riflemen, Poor's New Hampshire brigade, 
and Dearborn's light infantry were thereupon ordered to attack 
simultaneously the enemy's right and left flanks. Steadily the 
New Hampshire men mounted up the slope, received one volley, 
and then with a shout dashed forward to the very mouth of the 



2l6 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. l°ni^ 

cannon. So fierce was the contest that one piece was taken and 
retaken several times. Colonel Cilley leaped upon it, waved his 
sword, " dedicating the gun to the American cause," and then, 
with their own ammunition, opened it upon the enemy. It was 
the very inspiration of courage. Major Ackland was severely 
wounded. The British lines broke. Meanwhile, Morgan had 
driven back Fraser, who was covering the English right, and 
fallen on that flank so impetuously that it was already in retreat. 
Arnold, who was chafing in camp and anxious " to right himself," 
as he said, " with the sword," sprang to his saddle and rushed 
into the fray. " He will do some rash thing," shouted Gates, and 
ordered his aid, Major Armstrong, to call him back; but Arnold, 
suspecting the message, put spurs to his beautiful brown horse, 
named Warren after the hero of Bunker Hill, and was soon out 
of reach. He had no right to fight, much less to lead, but his 
rank and valor gave him authority at once. Dashing to the head 
of a part of Learned's brigade, where he was received with 
cheers by his old command, he ordered a charge on the centre of 
the British line. Leading the onset, delivering his orders in 
person where the bullets flew thickest, he galloped to and fro 
over the field as if possessed by the very demon of battle. In 
his rage he struck an American officer on the head with his sword 
without being conscious of the fact, as he afterward declared. 
His headlong valor inspired the troops with desperate courage. 
At the second charge the English gave way. 

Fraser was busy forming another line in the rear. Brave to a 
fault and chivalric in his sense of duty, this gallant officer was the 
mind and soul of the British army. Morgan saw that he alone 
stood between the Americans and victory. Calling to him some 
of his best men, he said, " That gallant officer is General Fraser. 
I admire and honor him ; but he must die. Stand among those 
bushes and do your duty." Mounted on an iron-gray charger 
and dressed in full uniform, Fraser was a conspicuous mark. A 
bullet cut the crupper of his horse and another his mane. " You 
are singled out, general," said his aide-de-camp ; " had you not 
better shift your ground?" " My duty forbids me to fly from 
danger," was the reply. A moment after he fell mortally 
wounded. 

Just then the New York men under Ten Broeck, coming on 
the field, swept all before them. Burgoyne sought to stay the 
tide ; a bullet went through his hat and another tore his vest. 



Oct. 7,1 
1777. J 



SECOND BATTLE OF SARATOGA. 



217 



The Americans urged the pursuit up to the very entrenchments. 
Arnold, maddened by the fight, stormed the camp of the light 
infantry under Earl Balcarras, the strongest part of the English 
line. For an hour the useless struggle continued. Repulsed, he 
rode to the American left, all the way exposed to the cross-fire of 
both armies, and ordered a general assault on the British right. 




GENERAL FRASER COVERED BY SHARP-SHOOTERS. 



A stockade was carried, and Breyman with his Germans was cut 
off from the main body of the British army. As Arnold dashed 
mto a sally-port, the Hessians fired a parting volley, wounding 
him in the same leg as at Quebec. At that moment Armstrong 
came up with Gates's order. He was borne from the field, but 
he had already gained a victory while his commander stayed in 
his tent. Breyman being mortally v ounded, his men lost heart 
and over two hundred surrendered. This position was the key 
to the British line. Burgoyne tried to rally his men to retake it ; 
but darkness closed the hard-fought contest. The Americans lay 
on their arms ready to renew the struggle in the morning. 

During the night, Burgoyne evacuated a part of his entrench- 
ments, and gathered his army upon the heights around the hos- 
pital, with the river in the rear and a deep ravine in front. His 
new position was so strong that Gates did not deem it best to 
hazard an attack. Fraser, in his dying moments, requested that he 
might be buried at six in the evening on the top of a little knoll in 



2l8 THIRD YEAR Ol' THE REVOLUTION. [°| C 777° 

the great redoubt. Just at sunset his body was borne thither ac- 
companied by Burgoyne, Phillips, and Riedesel. The American 
cannoneers were attracted by the presence of the officers, and, 
ignorant of the sad ceremony which was being enacted, their balls 
fell thick about the chaplain as he read the solemn burial service. 
So Fraser was entombed, as he had died, amid the roar of artillery. 

Burgoyne now renewed the retreat. The rain fell in torrents, 
and the roads were so badly cut up that he did not reach Sara- 
toga, a distance of six miles, until the next night. The men, too 
much exhausted to procure wood or build fires, lay down on the 
ground and slept in the fast-falling rain. On the ioth they crossed 
the Fishkill and made their last encampment. The fine house and 
mills of General Schuyler at the ford were burned by order of 
General Burgoyne. The British were now hemmed in on all 
sides. The end was near. 

Just at this time occurred a circumstance which illustrates the 
small events on which depend the fortunes of war. Gates received 
word that Burgoyne had sent on the bulk of his army toward the 
north. He determined at once to cut off the rear-guard still left 
in camp. The British general in some manner became advised of 
the plan, and put his best troops in ambush, where he could fire 
upon the Americans at the very moment of victory. All appar- 
ently went well. A patriot brigade had crossed the creek and 
another was just entering, a dense fog concealing the movement. 
Just then a British deserter came in and revealed the plot. Mes- 
sengers were hurried out and the troops ordered back, but not 
without some loss. A few minutes more, and the success of the 
whole campaign would have been imperiled. 

A reconnoitering party sent on to Fort Edward reported that 
the crossing was held by General Stark. The opposite bank of 
the Hudson was lined with the Americans. Bateaux containing 
part of their scanty stock of provisions had been seized, the rest 
being saved only by bringing them up the steep bank under a 
heavy cannonade. No word was received from General Clinton. 
Every part of the camp was searched out by the American fire. 
Water was scarce, and no one dared to get it, until a woman 
volunteered, when the sharpshooters, respecting her sex, let her 
pass unharmed. While a council of war held in Burgoyne's tent 
was considering the necessity of a surrender, several grape-shot 
struck near, and an eighteen-pound cannon-ball passed over the 
table around which the officers sat. Under these circumstances 



Oct. 17,-1 
1777. J 



SURRENDER OF BURGOYNE. 



219 



a decision was quickly made. They resolved to treat for capitu- 
lation. At first Gates demanded an unconditional surrender ; but 
knowing that Clinton had captured the torts in the Highlands 
commanding the passage of the Hudson, he consented that the 
British should be taken to Boston and be 
allowed to return to England, on condi- 
tion of not serving in the war again until 
exchanged. When Burgoyne heard from 
a deserter of Clinton's progress, he hesi- 
tated to sign the conditions ; but Gates 
drew up his army and threatened to open 
fire. Whereupon Burgoyne yielded. 

A detachment of Americans marched 
into the British camp to the lively air of 
Yankee Doodle, while the English army 
gravely filed out and laid down their 
arms. With a delicate consideration, the 
Continental forces were withdrawn from 
sight, and the only American officer pres- 
ent was Major Wilkinson, who had charge 
of the arrangements. The total number 
surrendered was five thousand seven hun- 
dred and ninety-one, besides one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty -six prisoners of 
war, including sick and wounded. Forty- 
two brass cannon and forty -six hundred 
muskets, with abundant munitions of war, 
were among the trophies. After this cere- 
mony was over, Generals Burgoyne and 
Gates advanced to meet each other at the 
head of their staffs. The former was 
dressed in a magnificent uniform of scarlet 
and gold, and the latter in a plain blue 
frock-coat. It was a marked contrast be- 
tween vanquished and victor. When they 
had approached nearly within a sword's 
length, they halted, and Burgoyne, with a graceful obeisance, said, 
" The fortune of war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner." 
General Gates, returning the salute, replied, " I shall always be 
ready to testify that it has not been through any fault of your 
excellency." 




220 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. |"S$V 



U777, 



As they met after these formalities, Gates used the common ex- 
pression, " I am very Jiappy to see you." " I believe you are," replied 
Burgoyne. Gates, pretending not to hear the retort, invited him 
to his marquee, where they partook of a sumptuous dinner. In the 
afternoon, the English troops were marched between the double 
lines of the Americans, and, in presence of both armies, Burgoyne 
handed his sword to Gates, who promptly returned it. The 
tragedy was finished. The northern invasion had proved an in- 
glorious failure. The prisoners were forwarded to Boston, but 
the British government failing to ratify the agreement, and fears 
arising that the men, if given up, would be at once turned into 
the British army, Congress ordered them to be sent into the 
interior of Virginia. The action caused much excitement and 
was fruitful of mutual recriminations between the two countries. 
Late in the fall, the " convention troops," as they were called, 
were marched seven hundred miles across the country to Char- 
lottesville, Virginia. Here comfortable barracks were built the 
next summer ; an extensive territory was cleared, and gardens 
were laid out and beautifully cultivated by them. At the close 
of the war many of the prisoners remained among their fellow- 
Germans and became useful citizens. 

The picture of this celebrated invasion would be incomplete 
without referring to the pathetic account left by Madame Riede- 
sel, who followed her husband throughout the disastrous cam- 
paign. This lady had a large calash made for her use, capable of 
holding herself, three children, and two female servants, in which 
they accompanied the army on their march. After they encamped, 
a small square building, with a capacious chimney, was erected 
for her comfort. She goes on to relate : " On the 7th of October 
our misfortunes began. I was at breakfast with my husband, and 
heard that something was intended. On the same day I expected 
Generals Burgoyne, Phillips, and Fraser to dine with us. I saw 
a great movement among the troops ; my husband told me it was 
merely a reconnoissance, which gave me no concern, as it often 
happened. I walked out of the house, and met several Indians 
in their war-dresses, with guns in their hands. When I asked 
them where they were going, they cried out, ' War ! war ! ' mean- 
ing that they were going to battle. This filled me with appre- 
hension, and I had scarcely got home before I heard reports of 
cannon and musketry, which grew louder by degrees, till at last 
the noise became excessive. 



P777.] MADAME RIEDESEL'S NARRATIVE. 221 

"About four o'clock in the afternoon, instead of the guests 
whom I expected, General Fraser was brought on a litter, mor- 
tally wounded. The table, which was already set, was instantly 
removed, and a bed placed in its stead for the wounded general. 
I sat trembling in a corner; the noise grew louder, and the alarm 
increased ; the thought that my husband might perhaps be brought 
in, wounded in the same manner, was terrible to me, and dis- 
tressed me exceedingly. General Fraser said to the surgeon, 
' Tell me if my wound is mortal ; do not flatter me.' The ball 
had passed through his body, and, unhappily for the general, he 
had eaten a very hearty breakfast, by which the stomach was dis- 
tended, and the ball, as the surgeon said, had passed through it. 
I heard him often exclaim with a sigh, ' Oh ! fatal ambition ! Poor 
General Burgoyne ! Oh ! my poor wife ! ' He was asked if he 
had any request to make, to which he replied that, ' If General 
Burgoyne would permit it, he should like to be buried at six 
o'clock in the evening, on the top of a mountain, in a redoubt 
which had been built there.' 

" I did not know which way to turn ; all the other rooms were 
full of sick. Toward evening I saw my husband coming ; then I 
forgot all my sorrows, and thanked God that he was spared to 
me. He ate in great haste, with me and his aide-de-camp, behind 
the house. We had been told that we had the advantage over the 
enemy, but the sorrowful faces I beheld told a different tale ; and 
before my husband went away he took me aside, and said every- 
thing was going very badly, and that I must keep myself in 
readiness to leave the place, but not to mention it to any one. I 
made the pretence that I would move the next morning into my 
new house, and had everything packed up ready. 

" I could not go to sleep, as I had General Fraser and all the 
other wounded gentlemen in my room, and I was sadly afraid my 
children would wake, and by their crying disturb the dying man 
in his last moments, who often addressed me and apologized ' for 
the trouble he gave me.' About three o'clock in the morning I 
was told that he could not hold out much longer ; I had desired 
to be informed of the near approach of this sad crisis, and I then 
wrapped up my children in their clothes, and went with them 
into the room below. About eight o'clock in the morning he 
died. 

" After he was laid out, and his corpse wrapped up in a sheet, 
we came again into the room, and had this sorrowful sight before 



222 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [$$■ 

us the whole day ; and, to add to the melancholy scene, almost 
every moment some officer of my acquaintance was brought in 
wounded. The cannonade commenced again ; a retreat was 
spoken of, but not the smallest motion was made toward it. 
About four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the house which had 
just been built for me in flames, and the enemy was now not far 
off. We knew that General Burgoyne would not refuse the last 
request of General Fraser, though, by his acceding to it, an 
unnecessary delay was occasioned, by which the inconvenience 
of the army was increased." 

As soon as the funeral service was finished and the grave of 
General Fraser closed, an order was issued that the army should 
fall back. 

" The retreat was ordered to be conducted with the greatest 
silence ; many fires were lighted, and several tents left standing ; 
we traveled continually during the night. At six o'clock in the 
morning we halted, which excited the surprise of all ; General 
Burgoyne had the cannon ranged and counted ; this delay seemed 
to displease everybody, for if we could only have made another 
good march, we should have been in safety. My husband, quite 
exhausted with fatigue, came into my calash, and slept for three 
hours. During that time Captain Wiloe brought me a bag full of 
bank-notes and Captain Grismar his elegant watch, a ring, and a 
purse full of money, which they requested me to take care of, and 
which I promised to do to the utmost of my power. We again 
marched, but had scarcely proceeded an hour before we halted, 
as the enemy was in sight ; it proved to be only a reconnoitering 
party of two hundred men, who might easily have been made 
prisoners if General Burgoyne had given proper orders on the 
occasion. 

" About evening we arrived at Saratoga ; my dress was wet 
through and through with rain, and in this state I had to remain 
the whole night, having no place to change it ; I, however, got 
close to a large fire, and at last lay down on some straw. At this 
moment General Phillips came up to me, and I asked him why 
he had not continued our retreat, as my husband had promised to 
cover it and bring the army through. ' Poor, dear woman,' said 
he, ' I wonder how, drenched as you are, you have the courage 
still to persevere and venture further in this kind of weather ; I 
wish,' continued he, ' you were our commanding general ; Gene- 
ral Burgoyne is tired, and means to halt here to-night and give us 
our supper.' 



Oct. 
1777 



;] MADAME RIEDESEL'S NARRATIVE. 223 



" On the morning of the 10th, at ten o'clock, General Burgoyne 
ordered the retreat to be continued. The greatest misery at this 
time prevailed in the army, and more than thirty officers came to 
me, for whom tea and coffee were prepared, and with whom I 
shared all my provisions, with which my calash was in general well 
supplied ; for I had a cook who was an excellent caterer, and who 
often in the night crossed small rivers and foraged on the inhabi- 
tants, bringing in with him sheep, small pigs, and poultry, for 
which he very often forgot to pay. 

" About two o'clock in the afternoon we again heard a firing 
of cannon and small arms ; instantly all was alarm, and everything 
in motion. My husband told me to go to a house not far off. I 
immediately seated myself in my calash with my children and 
drove off; but scarcely had I reached it before I discovered five 
or six armed men on the other side of the Hudson. Instinctively 
I threw my children down in the calash, and then concealed my- 
self with them. At this moment the fellows fired, and wounded 
an already wounded English soldier who was behind me. Poor 
fellow ! I pitied him exceedingly, but at this moment had no 
means or power to relieve him. 

" A terrible cannonade was commenced by the enemy against 
the house in which I sought to obtain shelter for myself and 
children, under the mistaken idea that all the generals were in it. 
Alas ! it contained none but wounded and women. We were at 
last obliged to resort to the cellar for refuge, and in one corner of 
this I remained the whole day, my children sleeping on the earth 
with their heads in my lap ; and in the same situation I passed a 
sleepless night. Eleven cannon-balls passed through the house, 
and we could distinctly hear them roll away. One poor soldier, 
who was lying on a table for the purpose of having his leg ampu- 
tated, was struck by a shot, which carried away his other ; his 
comrades had left him, and when we went to his assistance, we 
found him in the corner of a room, into which he had crept, more 
dead than alive, scarcely breathing. My reflections on the dan- 
ger to which my husband was exposed now agonized me exceed- 
ingly, and the thoughts of my children and the necessity of 
struggling for their preservation alone sustained me. 

" I now occupied myself through the day in attending the 
wounded ; I made them tea and coffee, and often shared my din- 
ner with them, for which they offered me a thousand expressions 
of gratitude. One day a Canadian officer came to our cellar, who 



224 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



roct., 

U777, 



had scarcely the power of holding himself upright, and we con- 
cluded he was dying for want of nourishment ; I was happy in 
offering him my dinner, which strengthened him and procured 
me his friendship. I now undertook the care of Major Bloom- 
field, another aide-de-camp of General Phillips ; he had received 
a musket-ball through both cheeks, which in its course had 
knocked out several of his teeth and cut his tongue ; he could 
hold nothing in his mouth, the matter which ran from his wound 

almost choked him, and 
he was not able to take 
any nourishment ex- 
cept a little soup, or 
something liquid. We 
had some Rhenish 
wine, and in the hope 
that the acidity of it 
would cleanse his 
wound, I gave him a 
bottle of it. He took 
a little now and then, 
and with such effect 
that his cure soon fol- 
lowed ; thus I added 
another to my stock of 
friends, and derived a 
satisfaction which, in 
the midst of sufferings, 
served to tranquillize 
me and diminish their 
acuteness. 

" One day General 
Phillips accompanied 
my husband, at the risk of their lives, on a visit to us. The 
general, after having witnessed our situation, said to him, ' I 
would not for ten thousand guineas come again to this place; 
my heart is almost broken.' 

" In this horrid situation we remained six days ; a cessation of 
hostilities was now spoken of, and eventually took place. On the 
16th, however, my husband had to repair to his post and I to my 
cellar. This day fresh beef was served out to the officers, who 
till now had only had salt provisions, which was very bad for 
their wounds. 




GENERAL BURGOYNE. 



Oct. 17, 1 
1777. J 



MADAME RIEDESEL'S NARRATIVE. 



225 



" On the 17th of October the convention was completed. 
General Burgoyne and the other generals waited on the American 
General Gates ; the troops laid down their arms, and gave them- 
selves up prisoners of war ! 

" My husband sent a message to me to come over to him with 
my children. I seated myself once more in my dear calash, and 
then rode through the American camp. As I passed on, I ob- 
served — and this was a great consolation to me — that no one eyed 
me with looks of re- 
sentment, but that they 
all greeted us, and even 
showed compassion in 
their countenances at 
the sight of a woman 
with small children. I 
was, I confess, afraid to 
go over to the enemy, 
as it was quite a new 
situation to me. When 
I drew near the tents, 
a handsome man ap- 
proached and met me, 
took my children from 
the calash, and hugged 
and kissed them, which 
affected me almost to 
tears. ' You tremble,' 
said he, addressing 
himself to me ; ' be not 
afraid.' ' No,' I an- 
swered, ' you seem so 
kind and tender to my 

children, it inspires me with courage.' He now led me to 
tent of General Gates, where I found Generals Burgoyne and 
Phillips, who were on a friendly footing with the former. Bur- 
goyne said to me, ' Never mind ; your sorrows have now an end.' 
I answered him, ' that I should be reprehensible to have any 
cares, as he had none ; and I was pleased to see him on such 
friendly footing with General Gates.' All the generals remained 
to dine with General Gates. 

" The same gentleman who received me so kindly now came 

15 




GENERAL GATES. 



the 



226 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ M |7^7. 8, 

and said to me, ' You will be very much embarrassed to eat with 
all these gentlemen ; come with your children to my tent, where 
I will prepare for you a frugal dinner, and give it with a free 
will.' I said, \ You are certainly a husband and a father, you 
have shown me so much kindness.' I now found that he was 
General Schuyler. He treated me with excellent smoked tongue, 
beefsteaks, potatoes, and good bread and butter ! Never could I 
nave wished to eat a better dinner ; I was content ; I saw all 
around me were so likewise ; and, what was better than all, my 
husband was out of danger. 

"After dinner General Schuyler begged me to pay him a visit 
at his house in Albany, where he expected also to receive General 
Burgoyne. Having sent to my husband for advice, he counselled 
me to accept the invitation." 

She was delighted with her reception at General Schuyler's 
hospitable mansion, and records that Mrs. Schuyler and her 
daughters " loaded us with kindness, and behaved in the same 
manner toward General Burgoyne, though he had wantonly 
caused their splendid country establishment to be burned." 
General Schuyler's gentlemanly courtesy was characteristically 
shown in his first meeting with Burgoyne after the surrender. 
The latter, remembering his unnecessary destruction of the 
former's property, attempted an excuse. " That was the fate of 
war," replied General Schuyler ; " I beg you, say no more about 
it." Burgoyne, in a speech before the House of Commons, adds: 
" He did more : he sent an aide-de-camp to conduct me to 
Albany, in order, as he expressed it, to procure better quarters 
than a stranger might be able to find. That gentleman conducted 
me to a very elegant house, and, to my great surprise, presented 
me to Mrs. Schuyler and family. In that house I remained dur- 
ing my whole stay in Albany, with a table of more than twenty 
covers for me and my friends, and every other demonstration of 
hospitality." 

We turn now from the brilliant exploits at Saratoga to a sad 
and sober record, relieved only by episodes of heroism, sacrifice, 
and devotion. Washington, at the opening of the campaign, had 
not over seven or eight thousand men, while General Howe 
moved out of New York with more than double that number, all 
veterans and eager for battle. The last of May, Washington 
removed from his winter quarters at Morristown to a strong posi- 
tion behind the Raritan at Middlebrook, in order to more care- 



July23 |7°77. Ug ' 25 '] THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. 227 

fully watch General Howe, then at New Brunswick. It was yet 
uncertain where he would strike, though he evidently aimed at 
Philadelphia. In June he tried to cut off Sullivan at Princeton, 
but failing in that, manoeuvred to force Washington to a general 
engagement. The American Fabius was too wary, and so Howe 
turned back to Staten Island. The 5th of July he began to 
embark the army on his brother's fleet. Slow and pleasure-lov- 
ing as ever, he kept the troops on shipboard in the sultry sun till 
the 23d, when he put out to sea. There was great doubt where 
the bolt would fall. Now there were rumors that he would enter 
the Delaware ; now that he had returned and ascended the Hud- 
son ; and then that he had sailed for Charleston. Meantime, the 
army was moved to Germantown to await events. At last the 
news that the British were actually in the Chesapeake dispelled 
all doubt. 

The army was immediately set in motion. In order to over- 
awe the disaffected, the troops were marched through Philadel- 
phia, down Front and up Chestnut streets. The soldiers looked 
their best and the fifes and drums played merrily, but they could 
not hide their indifferent equipments and the fact that the finest 
uniform was a brown linen hunting-shirt. To make the army 
appear somewhat alike, each soldier wore in his hat a sprig of 
green. Washington took post at Wilmington, while troops of 
light horse and infantry were sent on to annoy the advance of 
the enemy, who were already landing at the head of the Elk 
River. The patriot cause looked almost hopeless. With the 
greatest efforts, Washington had collected only about eleven 
thousand five hundred men, while the English numbered, accord- 
ing to returns in the British Department of State, nineteen 
thousand five hundred, besides officers. The contrast in the dis- 
cipline and equipments of the two armies was yet more marked. 
Howe was within fifty-four miles of Philadelphia, with a level 
country before him, no strong positions for defence, and a popula- 
tion largely royalist or indifferent. Yet Washington determined 
to hazard a battle before yielding the national capital. 

Considerable skirmishing now took place, during which 
occurred one of those wonderful instances of preservation so 
characteristic of Washington's career. " We had not lain long," 
says Major Ferguson, of the rifle corps, " when a rebel officer, 
remarkable by a huzzar dress, pressed toward our army, within a 
hundred yards of my right flank, not perceiving us. He was 



228 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ffift; 

followed by another, dressed in a dark green and blue, mounted 
on a bay horse, with a remarkable high cocked-hat. I ordered 
three good shots to steal near and fire at them ; but the idea dis- 
gusting me, I recalled the order. The huzzar, in returning, made 
a circuit, but the other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon 
which I advanced from the wood toward him. Upon my calling 
he stopped, but after looking at me he proceeded. I again drew 
his attention and made signs to him to stop, leveling my piece at 
him ; but he slowly cantered away. As I was within that dis- 
tance at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged half a 
dozen balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had 
only to determine ; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of 
an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself very coolly 
of his duty ; so I let him alone. The day after, I had been telling 
this story to some wounded officers who lay in the same room 
with me, when one of the surgeons, who had been dressing the 
wounded rebel officers, came in and told us that they had in- 
formed him that General Washington was all the morning with 
the light troops, and only attended by a French officer in a huzzar 
dress, he himself dressed and mounted in every point as above 
described. I am not sorry that I did not know at the time who 
it was." 

Washington finally took position back of the Brandywine to 
defend the principal route to Philadelphia, which crosses at 
Chad's Ford ; while General Sullivan was stationed above to 
watch the fords and protect the right flank. Howe immediately 
made his arrangements to repeat the tactics of Long Island. 
Knyphausen and the Hessians were to make a feint of forcing a 
passage at Chad's Ford, while Cornwallis led the bulk of the army 
higher up the river. Washington, advised of the movement, de- 
cided to cross the river himself and cut off Knyphausen's detach- 
ment before Howe, who had gone on with Cornwallis, could 
return to his aid. Word was at once dispatched to Sullivan to 
move over the fords and keep Cornwallis busy. Unfortunately 
Sullivan was not informed of the progress of the enemy, and, 
relying upon insufficient information, disobeyed his orders and 
halted. Precious time was lost. The plan was abandoned, and 
before Sullivan could believe that Cornwallis had left Kennet 
Square, in front of Chad's Ford, he was actually, with thirteen 
thousand men, fairly across and on the heights near Birmingham 
Meeting-House, within two miles of his own right flank. Sulli- 



S ^77. 1 '] BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE. 229 

van now did what he could to remedy the terrible mistake ; but 
before he could get his men into position, the British were upon 
him with the bayonet. The raw militia hurled back charge after 
charge, but at length gave way and streamed across the fields 
toward the main body. Lafayette, struggling sword in hand to 
rally the fugitives, was shot through the leg by a musket ball, and 
was helped off by his aide-de-camp. 

Meantime, Washington had been waiting in anxious expecta- 
tion. Suddenly a whig- farmer, named Thomas Cheney, dashed 
into camp, his horse covered with foam, and informed him that 
while out reconnoitering up the river, he had suddenly come upon 
the enemy ; that they fired upon him, and he had only escaped by 
the swiftness of his horse. Washington, misled so often, doubted 
the intelligence, but the man exclaimed, " My life for it, you are 
mistaken. Put me under guard till you find my story true!" 
Just then came word from Sullivan, and soon the booming of 
guns told that the news was only too correct. Putting himself at 
the head of a division of Pennsylvanians and Virginians, Washing- 
ton hastened to the relief of the imperiled right. Greene, with 
one brigade, marched four miles in forty-two minutes. Opening 
his ranks to let the flying militia pass through, he closed them 
again to check the pursuers. At a narrow defile about a mile 
from Dilworth, which Washington had already selected, he took 
a stand. The British came in hot haste, expecting no opposition. 
But Greene held his ground obstinately. When night came on, 
he drew off his men at leisure. Wayne defended Chad's Ford 
against Knyphausen until the heavy cannonading, and finally the 
appearance of the British on his flank, warned him of his danger, 
when he retreated in good order. 

Lafayette gives a graphic picture of the scene along the road 
to Chester during the flight of the militia. Terror and confusion 
were everywhere ; fugitives, cannon, and wagons recklessly 
crowded along pell-mell, while, above all, in the rear sounded 
volleys of musketry and the roar of the guns. Amid the disorder 
and darkness, it was impossible to check the torrent. At the 
bridge in Chester, Lafayette placed a guard. Washington and the 
troops of Generals Greene, Wayne, Armstrong, and others here 
came up, and the wearied army found repose. The English had 
marched far, and the check by Greene was too decided to admit 
of any further pursuit. 

September nth had been a sad day for the patriot cause. The 



230 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



[*?&. 



American loss was about one thousand, the British half us great 
The streets of Philadelphia were full of citizens anxiously listen- 
ing to the sound of the cannonade. When news came of the 
American defeat, the whigs were in consternation. Many de- 
serted their homes and fled, leaving all behind them. Congress 
that evening voted to adjourn to Lancaster, whence it afterward 
removed to York with all the archives of the government. 

In this time of general fear, one loves to linger on single 
instances of heroism. Among the 
names to be remembered is that ot 
Hannah Irwin Israel, whose husband 
was a prisoner on board a 
British frigate in full sight 
of his own house. He had 
been heard to say that he 
would sooner drive his cat- 
tle as a present to General 




MAP OF OPERATIONS 

IN NEW JERSEY 
AND PENNSYLVANIA 

American Routes. II 

ijj British Routes. DO 

J^£v "V alley T. >Tge~\L~ / \;:- . . 



Washington, than 
to receive for them 
thousands of dollars 
in British gold. As 
a retort, a detachment of soldiers 
was sent to his meadow to slaugh- 
ter his cattle before his eyes. His 
spirited young wife, who was not 
yet out of her teens, saw the move- 
ment, and with quick wit divined its cause. Taking with her 
a young boy, only eight years of age, she ran to the field, 
threw down the bars, and commenced to drive out the cattle. 
" Stop, or we shall shoot you ! " shouted the soldiers. " Fire 
away ! " was the only answer of the intrepid woman, intent on her 
determination. The balls fell thick and fast about her, but she 
carried her point, saved her property, and saw the foiled enemy 
go empty-handed back to their ship. Her husband was tried, and 



Sep i777' 20 '] TIIE MASSACRE AT PAOLI. 231 

only saved his life by giving- the Masonic sign to the presiding 
officer, who, he had discovered, was a member of the order. At 
this magical signal everything was changed. The patriot, who 
had been served with the meanest of food and whose bed was a 
coil of ropes on the open deck, was now sent to his home, in a 
splendid barge, loaded with presents for his heroic wife, while the 
tory witnesses who had caused his arrest, received a reprimand 
for wishing harm to an honorable man. 

Washington was in nowise discouraged by the defeat of 
Brandywine. The next day he moved to Germantown, where 
he gave his men only a day's rest, and then recrossed the Schuyl- 
kill, and taking the Lancaster road, went out to meet Howe again, 
if need be, on the same field. The two armies came in sight near 
the Warren tavern, twenty miles from Philadelphia. The ad- 
vanced posts had begun to skirmish, and a battle seemed immi- 
nent, when a deluging rain, which lasted for twenty-four hours, 
checked all movements. The Americans had no tents or blankets, 
their guns became wet, and finally it was discovered that the 
cartridge-boxes were so poorly made that they admitted the 
water, and the ammunition was spoiled. There were few bayonets, 
and retreat was the only resource. All day and part of the next 
night, the army, a thousand of the men barefoot, marched, under a 
pelting rain, over muddy roads, to Warwick furnace, where sup- 
plies were secured. 

Moving thence to defend the passage of the Schuylkill, Wayne 
was left to hang on the enemy's rear and cut off the baggage. 
He concealed his command deep in the wood, and supposed no 
one knew of his whereabouts, while his spies watched the British 
camp. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by tories, who kept 
Howe perfectly informed of all his movements. Grey, known as 
the " no-flint " general, because he usually ordered his men to re- 
move the flints from their muskets when about to make an attack, 
prepared with a strong detachment to surprise him. On the night 
of September 20th, Wayne, expecting reinforcements, had ordered 
his troops to lie on their arms. But, in the dark and rain, Grey 
stealthily approached the camp, cutting down the pickets on the 
way. The alarm was given and Wayne drew up his men, unfor- 
tunately, in front of their fires. By the light, the enemy saw dis- 
tinctly where to strike. Suddenly the British dashed out of the 
shade of the forest, and the bayonet made short work. Three 
hundred of the patriots were killed, wounded, or captured, many 




232 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ Sep m°' 6 ' 

being mercilessly butchered after they had surrendered. The 
British lost only seven men. Wayne, by his presence of mind, 
saved the rest of his detachment and rejoined Washington. 

The Paoli massacre, as it was called, left open the way to 
Philadelphia. By a feigned movement toward Reading, as if to 

seize the stores at that point, 
Howe decoyed Washington to 
defend the upper fords of the 
Schuylkill, while he turned in the 
night, and, crossing below, struck 
boldly between Philadelphia and 
the American army. Howe en- 
tered the city on the 26th. The 
army was put into winter-quar- 
the paoli monument. ters there and at Germantown. 

As the British general, with his 
brilliant staff and escort, marched into Philadelphia, followed by 
a long train of the choicest troops in the army — grenadiers, light- 
dragoons, and artillerymen with shining brass pieces, all in holiday 
array — they presented an imposing spectacle. Conquerors they 
proclaimed themselves in every motion; stepping proudly to the 
swelling music of God Save the King, and " presenting," says 
Irving, " with their scarlet uniforms, their glittering arms and 
flaunting feathers, a striking contrast to the poor patriot troops, 
who had recently passed through the same streets, weary and 
wayworn, and happy if they could cover their raggedness with a 
brown linen hunting-frock, and decorate their caps with a sprig 
of evergreen." 

Washington's campaign seemed a failure. Really, however, it 
was a success. By delaying Howe a month in marching little 
over fifty miles, he had rendered Saratoga possible. Howe was 
to have taken the city and then sent reinforcements to the north. 
By the time he had accomplished his task, the fate of Burgoyne 
was virtually decided. Moreover, the capture of the national 
capital proved not as great a piece of good fortune as was antici- 
pated. The dissipation of the winter sadly demoralized the army, 
so that Franklin wittily said, " Howe had not taken Philadelphia 
so much as Philadelphia had taken Howe." 

Washington would not let the enemies of his country rest in 
peace. A few weeks after they had nestled down in their snug 
quarters, he made arrangements for a surprise upon their encamp- 



Oct. 4-, 
1777. 



] BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. 233 



ment at Germantown. Howe, having sent off a detachment 
against the forts along the Delaware, and another to convey some 
provisions, gave Washington just the opportunity he wanted. In 
the evening of October 3d, the American army set out from its 
encampment at Skippack Creek upon this hazardous expedition. 
The troops moved in four columns by as many roads. Two of 
these were to attack the enemy in front and one on each flank. 
They were to time their march of fourteen miles so as to reach 
the neighborhood early enough to give the men a short rest, and 
then at daybreak to fall simultaneously upon the British camp. 

The column, consisting of Sullivan's and Wayne's divisions, 
and Conway's brigade, which was to enter Germantown by the 
Chestnut Hill road and thence through the principal street of the 
village, found the alarm had been given by the patrols, and the 
picket on Mount Airy was under arms. It was, however, soon 
driven back upon a battalion of light infantry and the fortieth 
regiment, under the veteran Colonel Musgrave. A sharp skir- 
mish followed. Wayne's men were not to be stopped. They re- 
membered the terrible night of September 20th, and their hearts 
were steeled and their arms nerved. It was now their turn to 
use the bayonet, and the officers could not hold them back, even 
when the time for mercy came. They raised the terrible cry of 
"Revenge! Revenge! Have at the blood - hounds ! " Howe, 
springing from his bed, and rushing in among the fugitives, 
shouted, " For shame ! I never saw you retreat before ! It is 
only a scouting party ! " But the rattling grape-shot told a more 
serious story, and he rushed off to prepare for a battle. In Phila- 
delphia, Cornwallis heard the roar of the guns and hastened re- 
inforcements to the rescue. Musgrave would not flee, but threw 
himself with six companies into the large stone mansion of Justice 
Chew, barricaded the doors and windows, and opened fire upon 
the pursuing troops. Up to this point all went well for the 
patriot cause. 

Now came a turn in the tide. Instead of watching this little 
fortress with a detachment, the troops stopped to capture it, 
General Knox declaring that it was against every rule of war to 
leave a fort in the rear. So much for red tape. Smith, a gallant 
Virginian, advanced, bearing a flag with a summons to surrender. 
He was fired upon and mortally wounded. Cannon were brought 
to bear, but proved too light. Attempts were made to set fire to 
the house, but in vain. After a precious half-hour was wasted, 



234 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



roct. 4, 

L 1777. 



the column moved on, leaving a regiment to guard the place. 
During the attack, the troops had become separated. A dense fog 
made it impossible to recognize one another, and parties fre- 
quently exchanged shots before they found out their mistake. 
The two columns of militia which were to attack the flanks never 
fired a shot. Greene, who had nearly two-thirds of the army, 
was to strike the English right wing near the market-place, but 
being three-quarters of an hour late, the British were ready to 





BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN — ATTACK ON CHEW S HOUSB. 



receive him, and his attack proved a failure. Williams's regi- 
ment of Virginians pushed gallantly forward, and took prisoners a 
large party of the British, but raising a shout brought a larger 
force upon them through the fog, and they were compelled to 
surrender. Woodford's brigade opened a cannonade on Chew's 
house. Wayne's men had now pushed down the street ; but, 
alarmed by this firing and supposing the British had gained their 
rear and cut them off from camp, they became panic-stricken. In 
their retreat they came upon Stephen's brigade, where, being 
mistaken for the enemy, they caused a fresh flurry among these 
troops. Sullivan's men had exhausted their ammunition, when 
they were startled by the cry of a light-horseman that they were 
surrounded. Washington, who was in the very front of the battle 
and under the hottest fire, now gave the order to retreat. It was 
sent to every detachment, and the men crept off in the fog as 



Jan-April,] EVENTS ABOUT NEW YORK. 235 

silently as they came. Pulaski with his cavalry gallantly covered 
the movement. Not a cannon was left behind. The British lost 
about six hundred and the patriots one thousand, including 
General Nash and other valuable officers. 

The battle was counted as an American defeat ; yet it greatly 
encouraged the patriots. They afterward learned that they had 
come off in the very moment of victory ; that Howe was on the 
point of retreating, and that Chester had been already named as 
the place of rendezvous. The British officers could but respect a 
general who displayed so much daring, and whose plans would have 
certainly ended in the utter route of their army, had it not been 
for events over which he could have no control. This battle also 
had an excellent effect in Europe. Count Vergennes said to the 
American commissioners in Paris that " Nothing struck him so 
much as General Washington's advancing and giving battle to 
General Howe. To bring an army raised within a year to this, 
promises everything." 

While New Jersey had been the centre of interest, some events 
had occurred at the northward worth recording. When Wash- 
ington was hurrying his weary men from Princeton, he sent a 
note to General Heath, then in command of the American troops 
collected in the Highlands, to make a demonstration upon New 
York, hoping thereby to induce the enemy to withdraw troops 
from Jersey for the defence of that city. Heath accordingly ad- 
vanced to King's Bridge, and sent a bombastic summons to Fort 
Independence, threatening to put everybody to the sword who 
did not surrender within twenty minutes. After a few days 
skirmishing, learning of troops up the Sound which might get in 
his rear, he withdrew, the laughing-stock of both armies. 

In March, General Howe, with a fleet of ten sail, ascended 
the Hudson to Peekskill, and, landing, set fire to a large quantity 
of army stores collected at that place. General McDougal, hav- 
ing only two hundred and fifty men, could muster little defence 
against the overwhelming force of the enemy. 

Late in April, Governor Tryon, with about two thousand men, 
left New York to destroy the military supplies at Danbury, Con- 
necticut. He landed at the foot of Compo Hill, near the mouth 
of the Saugatuck River. The expedition was a surprise and met 
with no resistance. At Bethel, on the way, an amusing incident 
occurred. One Luther Holcomb, in order to lengthen the time 
as much as possible for the benefit of the people of Danbury, rode 



236 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ Apri ,' 7 77' 2a 

to the top of a hill, over which the British were about to make 
their way, and, waving his hat, turned to an imaginary host in his 
rear, shouting, " Halt the whole universe ! break off into king- 
doms ! " Tryon immediately checked his army, arranged his 
cannon so as to sweep the advancing enemy, and sent out recon- 
noitering parties. Holcomb, content with having stopped the 
whole army by a bit of rodomontade, put spurs to his horse and 
retreated to Danbury, leaving the duped general to digest the 
joke as amiably as possible. Guided by two tories of Danbury, 
Tryon reached that place and destroyed the stores. The night 
was passed in drinking and carousing. At dawn, the torch was 
set to all the houses except those of the tories, and, amid the 
flames of the burning town, the troops started on their return. 

Then ensued a scene like that of Lexington and Concord two 
years before. The militia were fast gathering from the neighbor- 
ing villages. Tryon took a new route, hoping to dodge his foes, 
but they were not to be thrown off. General Wooster, then a 
veteran of near seventy, with a little force of two hundred, hung 
on the rear. While encouraging his men he was mortally 
wounded. Generals Arnold and Silliman hurried to Ridgefield, 
and, throwing up a barricade across the road, with five hundred men 
awaited the advance of two thousand. They held their post for 
a quarter of an hour, when it was outflanked. A whole platoon 
fired upon Arnold at a distance of thirty yards. His horse fell, 
and a tory rushed up, calling upon him to surrender. " Not yet," 
exclaimed Arnold, as he sprang to his feet, drew a pistol, and shot 
the man dead. Then, springing toward a swamp, under a shower 
of bullets, he escaped unharmed, and was soon off mustering the 
militia on the road in advance of the British. 

Tryon remained here all night, and the next day renewed his 
perilous journey. The patriots, from behind stone walls and 
buildings, continually annoyed the march. Lamb, with artillery 
and volunteers from New Haven, was at the Saugatuck bridge. 
Tryon avoided them by fording the river a mile above, and then, 
putting his men at full speed, ran for the hill of Compo. 
Some of the Continentals pushed across the bridge and struck 
them in flank ; some kept along the west side and galled them 
with shot and ball, and some forded the stream and fired on the 
rear-guard. Arnold led on the attack until his horse was dis- 
abled, and seamen from the fleet, coming to the rescue, checked 
the Americans in their eager pursuit. Tryon's wearied party 



July 10,-1 
1777. J 



CAPTURE OF GENERAL PRESCOTT. 



237 



now embarked, harassed to the very last by Lamb's artillery. In 
this useless exploit the British lost two hundred men, and, by 
their savage ferocity, kindled everywhere a hatred that burned 
long after peace had come. Congress voted Arnold a capari- 
soned horse, as a token of approbation for his gallant conduct. 

The next month Colonel Meigs avenged the loss at Danbury. 
Embarking in whale-boats at Guilford about two hundred militia- 




CAPTURE OF GENERAL PRESCOTT. 



In July, Lieutenant-Colonel 



men, he crossed the Sound 
on the night of May 23d, and 
reaching Sag Harbor at day- 
break, burned there a British 
vessel of half a dozen guns 
and several loaded transports, 
destroyed the stores, and cap- 
tured ninety prisoners, escap- 
ing without the loss of a man. 
For this brilliant feat Congress 
presented him a sword. 
Barton laid a plan to capture 



General Prescott, in command of the British forces in Rhode 



238 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [°$ 7 6 . 

Island, who was quartered at a lonely farm-house near Newport. 
Taking about forty militia in boats, Barton rowed across Narra- 
ganset Bay, through the English fleet, dexterously avoiding their 
vessels, and landed in a cove close by the general's quarters. 
Seizing the astonished sentinel who guarded his door, they 
entered the house, captured, and hurried off the half- dressed 
general. A soldier, escaping from the house, gave the alarm, 
but the laughing guard assured him he had seen a ghost. They 
soon, however, found it to be no jesting matter, and vainly pur- 
sued the exultant Barton ; for, while they were searching the 
sand on the shore for the foot-prints of his party, he passed under 
the stern of the English guard-ship and escaped to Providence. 
" You have made a bold push to-night," said Prescott as they 
landed. " We have done as well as we could," replied Barton. 
He received a sword from Congress and was also promoted to 
a colonelcy. 

Unfortunately, Lee was the only officer in Howe's possession 
with the same rank as Prescott, and they were exchanged. It 
proved no gain to the patriot cause, although at that time every- 
body rejoiced that by this daring feat they had again secured the 
" palladium of their liberties." 

While Burgoyne was making his desperate adventure at the 
north, Clinton attempted a diversion from the south, as was ex- 
pected at the beginning of the campaign. Putnam, commanding 
on the Hudson, in his easy good-nature had allowed his troops to 
become scattered, so that he had only two thousand men for the 
defence of the Highlands. Clinton made a feint on Fishkill, 
which led Putnam off on a wild-goose chase. George Clinton, 
governor of New York, however, saw the real point of danger, 
and hastened, with his brother and all the troops he could gather, 
to Forts Clinton and Montgomery. October 6th, the British 
landed and carried both forts by storm. The garrison made a 
desperate resistance, but, being overpowered by superior num- 
bers, fled, and, favored by the gathering darkness, mostly escaped 
over the hills. The heavy iron chain and boom which had been 
put across the river to prevent the ascent of the British fleet was 
now useless. Two American frigates, sent down for the defence 
of the obstructions, were becalmed, and were fired to prevent 
their falling into the hands of the enemy. Fort Constitution 
being abandoned, the Hudson was opened to Albany. Clinton, 
however, took no advantage of the opportunity, but returned to 



°| C 777 5 '] BURNING OF KINGSTON, NEW YORK. 239 

New York, leaving Burgoyne to his fate. Vaughan remained 
behind and led a marauding party as far up as Kingston (October 
15th), burning and plundering that town and the houses of 
patriots along the river. If Clinton had gone on to Albany, 
Gates, then on the eve of success, would have been forced to 
retreat into New England, and Burgoyne's way would have been 
clear. As it was, this wanton, useless expedition only excited 
wide-spread indignation. 

A very amusing incident is told which occurred during this 
sally. Some Dutchmen were at work near a swampy flat, 
when suddenly the red-coats came in view. It was low water, 
and they fled across the flats toward Ponkhocken, as fast as their 
legs could carry them, not daring to look behind, lest, like Lot's 
wife, they might be detained. The summer haymakers had left a 
rake on the marsh meadow, and upon this one of the fugitives 
trod, the handle striking him in the back. Not doubting that a 
" Britisher " was close upon his heels, he stopped short, and, 
throwing up his hands imploringly, exclaimed, " O, mein Cot ! 
mein Cot ! I kivs up. Hoorah for King Shorge ! " 

Meantime, Governor Clinton had been trying to raise a force 
for the defence of Kingston. While he was encamped near New 
Windsor, collecting the scattered troops, one day about noon a 
horseman galloped in hot haste up to the sentinel on guard, and, 
in answer to his challenge, said, "lam a friend and wish to see 
General Clinton." He was admitted to the general's presence, 
but on entering betrayed an involuntary surprise, and muttering, 
" I am lost ! " was seen to hastily put something into his mouth 
and swallow it. Suspicion being thus excited, he was arrested 
and given a heavy dose of tartar emetic. This brought to light a 
silver bullet, which, however, the prisoner succeeded in again 
swallowing. He refused to repeat the dose, but was assured 
that resistance was useless, as, in case he persisted, he would 
be immediately hanged and a post-mortem examination effected. 
Having yielded, the bullet was at length secured. It was found 
to be hollow, and secreted within it was the following note, 
written two days before : 

"Fort Montgomery, Oct. 8, 1777. 

"Nous y void, and nothing now between us and Gates. I 
sincerely hope this little success of ours may facilitate your 
operations. In answer to your letter of the 28th of September 



240 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



roct. 12, 

L 1777. 



■"V 



rMioNI^ 






by C. C, I shall only say, I cannot presume to order or even 
advise, for reasons obvious. I heartily wish you success. 

" Faithfully yours, " H. CLINTON. 

" General Burgoyne.'" 

This established the guilt of the prisoner. The secret mes- 
senger of Sir Henry Clinton had supposed the Americans to be 
utterly routed in the Highlands; 
and the persistent contempt of 
the British, who never granted 
the honor of a military title to 
any American officer — addressing 
the commander-in-chief himself 
only as Mr. Washington — so mis- 
led him that when he heard of his 
proximity to General Clinton, he 
supposed himself of course among 
his own friends. He was tried, 
condemned, and hanged as a spy 
while the flames of burning Eso- 
pus, fired by Vaughan's maraud- 




^^^^-V^-P^" EXEC 




EXECUTION OF A SPY AT KINGSTON, NEW YORK. 



%^iJ^^:t&i 




ing party, streamed up the distant sky, 
in full sight of the apple-tree on which 
he ignominiously swung. 

In order to prevent the English fleet 
from ascending the Delaware, that river had been carefully forti- 
fied. A few miles below Philadelphia, a strong redoubt, called 
Fort Mifflin, had been erected, and on the New Jersey shore, at Red 
Bank, another, named Fort Mercer. The principal channel, lying 
between these fortifications, had been obstructed by strong chevaux 



0< J777. 2 '] ATTACK ON FORT MERCER. 241 

de /rise, or frames made of heavy timbers, armed with spikes and 
filled with stone, so as to keep them in their place. Under the 
protection of the guns were moored floating batteries, galleys, 
and fire-ships. Further down the river, at Billingsport, was 
another fort with similar obstructions ; these, however, were 
captured by an English detachment soon after the battle of 
Brandy wine, and, by the middle of October, several vessels broke 
a passage through the obstacles in the channel. The upper forts 
remained, and it was determined to defend them to the last. 
Colonel Greene was in command at Fort Mercer, with four 
hundred Rhode Island Continentals, having Captain Mauduit 
Duplessis, a brave French engineer officer, to direct the artillery. 
Fort Mifflin was garrisoned by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, and 
about the same number of Maryland troops of the line. The 
fleet was under Commodore Hazlewood. Howe saw that he 
must open up communications with his ships, or his position in 
Philadelphia would become untenable from the difficulty of secur- 
ing supplies. 

On the morning of the 22d of October, the little garrison at 
Fort Mercer was startled by the appearance on the edge of the 
woods, within cannon-shot, of a body of Hessians, twelve hun- 
dred strong, under Count Donop. Soon an officer with a flag and 
a drummer approached and pompously demanded a surrender — 
" The king of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down 
their arms, and they are warned that if they stand the battle no 
quarter will be given." Greene at once replied, " We ask no quar- 
ter, nor will we give any." Hurried preparations were made for 
defence. About five o'clock the enemy advanced to the assault in 
columns, headed by a captain, with the carpenters and their axes, 
and a hundred men carrying fascines for filling the ditches. The 
outworks were unfinished, and the garrison made little attempt to 
defend them. The Hessians, elated by the easy victory, entered 
at two points, and rushed forward with the drum "beating a 
lively march." Not a man was to be seen, and on the north side 
some even reached the earthworks, when a terrible musketry fire 
burst forth. At the same time their flanks were raked with 
grape-shot from a battery in the angle of the embankment, and 
chain-shot from a couple of galleys concealed behind the bushes 
on the bank. The Hessians, however, pressed ahead. Under 
Donop at the south side they broke through the abattis, filled the 
ditch, and began to ascend the rampart. But those who reached 
16 



242 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. Pim?" 

the top were struck down by spear and bayonet. Donop fell 
mortally wounded. The rest were forced to fall back to the pro- 
tection of the forest. In this brief hour of slaughter, the British 
lost four hundred men and the Americans only thirty-eight. 

While Mauduit was inspecting the works after the assault 
was repulsed, he heard some one calling out, " Whoever you are, 
draw me hence." It proved to be Count Donop, who, mortally 
wounded, was wedged in among the bodies of the slain. He lived 
three days afterward, receiving every possible comfort from Mau- 
duit, who personally attended him until his death. " It is finish- 
ing a noble career early," he said to his kind companion. " I die 
the victim of my ambition and of the avarice of my king ; but, 
dying in the arms of honor, I have no regrets." Thus perished 
this brave man, at the age of thirty-seven. He was buried near 
the fort he vainly sought to capture. A rough boulder marks the 
spot. His bones have been carried off by relic-hunters, and his 
skull is said to be in the hands of a New Jersey physician. 

The British fleet ascended the river to take part in the contest. 
The next day they opened a heavy cannonade on Fort Mifflin. 
The reply from fort and fleet was too severe, and they were 
forced to drop down the stream. Two frigates, the Augusta and 
the Merlin, grounded. The former was blown up by red-hot 
shot from the American guns, several of her officers and crew 
perishing in the explosion ; the latter was set on fire and aban- 
doned by her crew. 

During the attack, one old lady remained in her house on 
the bank of the river, answering urgent entreaties to flee with 
" God's arm is strong, and will protect me ; I may do good by 
staying." She was left to her fate, and while the balls whizzed 
and rattled, battering against the brick walls of her dwelling, like 
hailstones in a tempest, the steady hum of her spinning-wheel was 
undisturbed and unbroken. At length a twelve-pounder came 
booming through the side of the house, sundering partitions with 
a terrific crash, and landing in a wall near the plucky spinner. 
Taking her wheel, she now retreated to the cellar, where she con- 
tinued her industry till the battle was over. She then put her 
spinning aside, and devoted herself to the suffering wounded who 
were brought into her house. She cared for all alike, but admin- 
istered a stirring rebuke to the mercenary Hessians, while, at the 
same time, she tenderly dressed their wounds. The name of this 
brave woman was Anna Whitall, a Quakeress. 



N0v i777. 20 '] CAPTURE OF MERCER AND RED BANK. 243 

The British now adopted surer measures for the reduction of 
the forts. Heavy works were erected on the Pennsylvania shore 
and on Province Island at a distance of five hundred yards. In all, 
fourteen redoubts manned with heavy artillery, a floating bat- 
tery of twenty-two guns at forty yards, and a fleet carrying three 
hundred and thirty -six guns, were brought to bear upon this 
devoted garrison. From the 10th to the 15th, they kept up an 
unbroken rain of bomb and shot. Smith was wounded and left 
the fort ; the next in rank being also disabled, Major Thayer of 
Rhode Island volunteered for the command. On the last day, 
other vessels worked up into the narrow channel next the shore, 
where they could throw in hand-grenades. About ten o'clock, 
a bugle-note gave the signal, and the fire was renewed with 
redoubled energy. The only two serviceable guns were dis- 
mounted. The yard-arms of the ships overlooked the earth- 
works, so that sharp-shooters perched in the tops picked off every 
man who showed himself upon the platforms. In the night, the 
remainder of the garrison, nearly two hundred and fifty having 
been killed or wounded, passed over to Red Bank. When the 
British entered the deserted works the next morning, they found 
nearly every cannon stained with the blood of its gallant de- 
fenders. 

Howe, having been heavily reinforced from New York, sent 
Cornwallis with a superior body of troops along the left shore of 
the Delaware. Red Bank was evacuated, part of the American 
vessels escaping during a dark night up to Burlington, and the 
rest being destroyed. The British leveled the fortifications, 
removed a part of the obstructions, and soon had complete con- 
trol of the river. Philadelphia was fortified, and Howe's position 
became secure. 

Winter had come, but Washington was unwilling to send his 
men to York, Lancaster, or Carlisle, the nearest towns where 
they could be comfortably housed, as that would leave a large 
and fertile country open to the incursions of the enemy. So he 
still kept his famishing and suffering army in the field. On the 
night of December 4th, Howe quietly left Philadelphia with four- 
teen thousand men, hoping to surprise Washington and " drive 
the Federal army over the Blue Mountains." To his astonish- 
ment, he found Washington occupying a strong position in 
wooded heights at Whitemarsh, all ready to receive him. For 
several days he skirmished about, trying to draw Washington 



244 THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ De , c 7 ^-«. 

out of his camp, but finding this impossible, and not daring to 
attack him in his chosen position, during the night of the 8th he 
decamped and hastened back to Philadelphia, making such good 
time that the next day none but the American light-horse could 
overtake his rear-guard. 

The secret of his failure may be easily told. The British 
adjutant-general had fixed upon a back-chamber in the house of 
William and Lydia Darrah, as a convenient place for private con- 
ference ; and here he often met one or more officers in close 
consultation. One day he requested Lydia to prepare the room 
with fire and candles, as he should need it that evening, adding 
in an impressive voice, " Be sure that your family are all in bed at 
an early hour." His manner excited her curiosity, and after they 
had entered and locked themselves in their room, she quietly 
arose, and in her stocking-feet stole to the door. Putting her ear 
to the keyhole, she distinctly heard an order read for an attack on 
Washington's troops the next night. Lydia was a true patriot, 
and this order banished sleep from her eyes. In the early dawn 
she awoke her husband and informed him that she was obliged to 
go to Frankford that morning for flour. As the Philadelphians 
were chiefly dependent on the Frankford mills, this was a frequent 
occurrence, and a passport was readily furnished by General 
Howe, at whose headquarters she stopped on her way out of the 
city. She walked the five miles over the frozen snow that cold 
December morning at her utmost speed, and, halting at the mill 
only long enough to leave her bag, pressed rapidly on toward 
the American lines. Meeting Lieutenant-Colonel Craig, whom 
Washington had sent out as a scout, she relieved her mind of its 
burden. Hastening back to the mill, she shouldered her bag of 
flour and returned home without exciting suspicion. On the 
return of the discomfited troops, the adjutant-general called her 
to his room and proceeded to question her. " Lydia, were any 
of your family up on the night I received company here ? " 
" No," she promptly replied, "they all retired at eight o'clock," 
which was true. " It is very strange," he pursued ; " you, I 
know, were asleep, for I knocked at your door three times before 
you heard me when we left the house." This also was true, in so 
far as his knocking was concerned ; for the subtle Lydia had too 
much at stake to appear awake at that moment, and had feigned 
the heaviest of slumber. " It is certain we were betrayed, yet 
how I cannot imagine," he concluded, " unless the walls of the 



De i777 21 '] THE CAMP AT VALLEY FORGE. 245 

house tell tales." His meek listener left him to his own conjec- 
tures, and respectfully retired. 

Such was the condition of the soldiers and the severity of the 
season, that it became absolutely necessary to provide them with 
some shelter. Washington, after careful deliberation, selected 
Valley Forge, a secluded spot about twenty miles from Phila- 
delphia. Here he would be able to keep watch of the enemy and 
protect the people from incursions. December 1 ith, the army set 
out on its painful march of eight days. Reaching their destination, 
the men had yet to build their own houses. The 18th was ob- 
served as a " day of thanksgiving and praise," says the record. It 
must have been truly a patient heart that, in that extremity, could 
have felt any response to such a recommendation of Congress. 

The next day, the troops began to cut down trees and erect 
log-houses over the sloping hill-sides. The huts were each four- 
teen feet by sixteen ; the interstices were filled with clay ; the fire- 
places were plastered with the same material ; and the roofs were 
covered with split planks, or thatched with boughs. These rude 
dwellings were arranged in regular streets, and within the Christ- 
mas holidays the Valley took on quite the look of a military en- 
campment. 

While this work was going briskly forward, Washington re- 
ceived news that the enemy was making a sortie toward Chester. 
On orders being issued for the troops to be ready to march, the 
generals replied, " Fighting is preferable to starving." The men, 
already without bread for three and meat for two days, had muti- 
nied. In this emergency, with his shivering, famishing men around 
him, Washington learned that the Legislature of Pennsylvania had 
remonstrated against his going into winter-quarters, instead of 
keeping the field. It manifested a cruel indifference, and he in- 
dignantly wrote to the president of Congress : " Gentlemen repro- 
bate the going into winter-quarters as much as if they thought the 
soldiers were made of stocks or stones, and equally insensible of 
cold and hunger. * * * I can assure these gentlemen, that it 
is a much easier, less distressing thing, to draw remonstrances in 
a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to occupy a bleak 
hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. 
However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked 
and distressed soldiers, I feel abundantly for them, and from my 
soul I pity their distresses, which it is neither in my power to 
relieve nor prevent." 



246 



THIRD YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



[Dec, 



777. 



This spirited rebuke did not still the clamor, and Washing- 
ton was even advised to risk all and dash his little army to 
pieces by hurling it against the strong entrenchments of the 
English at Philadelphia, rather than endure longer the reproach 
of inactivity. 




Washington's headquarters at valley forge. 



CHAPTER V. 

FOURTH YEJfR OF THE (REVOLUTION— 1778. 




HE winter at Valley Forge was, in- 
deed, the darkest period of all 
that " time which tried men's 
souls." The Continental paper- 
money was so depreciated in 
value that an officer's pay would 
not keep him in clothes. Many, 
having spent their entire for- 
tunes in the war, were now com- 
pelled to resign, in order to get a 
living. The men were encamped 
in cold, comfortless huts, with 
little food or clothing. Fre- 
quently there was only one suit of clothes for two soldiers, which 
they would take turns in wearing. Barefooted, they left on the 
frozen ground their tracks in blood. Few had blankets. Num- 
bers were compelled to sit by their fires all night. Their fuel 
they were compelled to carry on their backs from the woods 
where they cut it. Straw could not be obtained. Soldiers who 
were enfeebled by hunger and benumbed by cold, slept on the 
bare earth, and sickness followed such exposure. Within three 
weeks, two thousand men were rendered unfit for duty. With no 
change of clothing, no suitable food, and no medicines, death was 
the only relief. A distinguished foreign officer has related that 
at this time he was " walking one day with General Washington 
among the huts, when he heard many voices echoing through the 
open crevices between the logs, 'No pay, no clothes, no provisions, 
no rum ! ' And when a miserable wretch was seen flitting from 
one hut to another, his nakedness was only covered by a dirty 
blanket." 



248 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ftfo 

Amid this terrible suffering, the fires of patriotism burned 
brightly. Every effort was made to induce the suffering soldiers 
to desert and join the British army ; but few, however, proved 
false, and these were mainly foreigners. Washington felt that 
his cause was just, and inspired all around him with his sublime 
faith. One day during the winter, while Isaac Potts, at whose 
house Washington was quartered, was on his way up the creek, 
he heard a voice of prayer in the thicket near by. Softly follow- 
ing its direction, he soon discovered the general upon his knees, 
his cheek wet with tears. Narrating this incident to his wife, he 
added with deep emotion, " If there is any one to whom the Lord 
will listen, it is George Washington, and under such a com- 
mander our independence is certain." 

In January, a raft made of kegs full of powder, and fitted with 
machinery to explode them upon striking any object, was floated 
down the river. One of the kegs burst opposite Philadelphia. 
The fleet which had been lying in the stream happened to have 
been drawn into the harbor that night, and so escaped injury. 
Great alarm was caused in the city by this singular device of the 
Yankees. The cannon were trained upon every strange object 
floating on the water, and for twenty-four hours thereafter no 
innocent chip even could get by without a shot. Judge Hopkin- 
son wrote the following comic ballad upon the circumstance. It 
was set to the tune of Yankee Doodle : 

THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS. 

" Gallants attend, and hear a friend 
Trill forth harmonious ditty ; 
Strange things I'll tell, which late befell 
In Philadelphia city. 

" 'Twas early day, as poets say, 
Just when the sun was rising, 
A soldier stood on log of wood, 
And saw a thing surprising. 

" As in amaze he stood to gaze, 
(The truth can't be denied, sir), 
He spied a score of kegs, or more, 
Come floating down the tide, sir. 

" A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, 

The strange appearance viewing, 
First wiped his eyes, in great surprise, 
Then said, ' Some mischiefs brewing. 



,7*78'.] " BATTLE OF THE KEGS." £49 

" ' These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold. 
Packed up like pickled herring ; 
And they've come down t'attack the town 
In this new way of ferry'ng.' 

"The soldier flew, the sailor too, 
And, scared almost to death, sir, 
Wore out their shoes to spread the news, 
And ran till out of breath, sir. 

" Now up and down, throughout the town, 
Most frantic scenes were acted, 
And some ran here, and others there, 
Like men almost distracted. 



"Now, in a fright, Howe starts upright, 
Awaked by such a clatter ; 
He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, 
* For God's sake, what's the matter?' 

"At his bedside, he then espied 
Sir Erskine, at command, sir ; 
Upon one foot he had one boot, 
And t'other in his hand, sir. 

" ' Arise ! arise ! ' Sir Erskine cries ; 
' The rebels — more's the pity — 
Without a boat, are all afloat, 
And ranged before the city. 

* ' The motley crew, in vessels new, 
With Satan for their guide, sir, 
Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs, 
Came driving down the tide, sir, 

" ' Therefore prepare for bloody war ; 
These kegs must all be routed ; 
Or surely we despised shall be, 
And British courage doubted.' 

" The royal band now ready stand, 
All ranged in dread array, sir, 
With stomach stout to see it out, 
And make a bloody day, sir. 

** The cannons roar from shore to shore. 
The small-arms loud did rattle , 
Since war began, I'm sure no man 
E'er saw so strange a battle. 



2 SO FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ J |77&°' 

" The kegs, 'tis said, though strongly made 
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 
Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
The conq'ring British troops, sir. 

" From morn to night these men of might 
Display'd amazing courage, 
And when the sun was fairly down, 
Retired to sup their porridge. 

" A hundred men, with each a pen, 
Or more, upon my word, sir, 
It is most true, would be too few, 
Their valor to record, sir. 

" Such feats did they perform that day 
Against those wicked kegs, sir, 
That, years to come, if they get home, 

They'll make their boasts and brags, sir." 

Captain Henry Lee, afterward famous as " Light-horse Harry," 
first came into notice for his daring exploits during the advance 
of the British toward Philadelphia. He was the son of the " Low- 
land beauty " who, in her early days, touched Washington's heart, 
though she gave her own to another. The commander-in-chief 
had a peculiar liking for this dashing young officer, and in the fall 
of 1779 ordered all Lee's letters to be marked " private," that they 
might come directly into his hands. On the night of January 
20th, an attempt was made to surprise the captain in his quar- 
ters about six miles from Valley Forge. At daylight, he was 
awakened to find his house surrounded by two hundred British 
cavalry. Securing the doors, and placing his companions, seven 
in all, each at a window, he maintained such a steady fire that, 
after a contest of half an hour, the enemy withdrew. They then 
tried to capture his horses from the barn adjoining. Lee there- 
upon dashed out with his men, exclaiming, " Fire away, here 
comes our infantry ; we shall have them all ! " The British, sup- 
posing help was at hand, fled precipitately. Lee's men, quickly 
mounting their horses, pursued their late besiegers for a long 
distance. On the recommendation of Washington, the gallant 
captain received the rank of major, and was authorized to raise 
an independent partisan corps, afterward known through the war 
as " Lee's Legion." 

The story of the Revolution is incomplete unless a peep be 
taken behind the scenes, and some of the secret but unparal- 



Jan.,1 
1778. J 



DEMORALIZATION OF THE PEOPLE. 



251 



leled difficulties experienced by the true heroes of the day be 
thoroughly understood. Valley Forge was only a part of the 
dark back-ground of the long struggle for Independence. It is a 
common idea that ours is a degenerate age ; that 1776 was a time 
of honor and honesty, of sincerity and devotion. To think this, 
is to undervalue the achievements of our Revolutionary sires, as 
well as to erect a false 
standard with which to 
compare the present. 
Whoever supposes that 




IN CAMP AT VALLEY FORGE. 



the spirit of union 
*- and of sacrifice was 

unanimous among even 
the great actors in the drama 
of Independence, utterly fails 
to comprehend the greatest 
obstacles to the successful 
prosecution of the war, and the ultimate Union of the States. 

The war, as it progressed, seemed to demoralize all classes in 
society. The pulpit, the press, and good men, sought in vain to 
stem the tide of evil. While the army was suffering so much in 
the cause of liberty, contractors became rich, and monopolists 
hoarded the very necessaries of life. Trade with the royal troops 
was opened on every side. Though the magazines at Valley Forge 



252 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [1778. 

were empty, and meat was often not seen for a week at a time, 
the markets in Philadelphia were abundantly supplied. Washing- 
ton, having received authority from Congress to seize provisions 
for the troops and issue scrip therefor, ordered the farmers within 
a radius of seventy miles to thresh out one-half of their grain by 
February ist, and the rest by March ist, under penalty of having 
it all seized as straw. The inhabitants refused, and, guns in hand, 
stood guard over their stacks and cattle, even burning what they 
could not sell, to prevent its falling into the hands of the famish- 
ing patriot army. Men abandoned useful occupations to plunge 
into stock -jobbing, gambling, and other disreputable pursuits; 
counterfeited the public securities ; forged official signatures ; re- 
fused to pay their honest debts, except in depreciated paper- 
money ; and fattened upon the common necessities. Love of 
country was declared to be an illusion. There were times when 
private or public faith appeared to be the exception. Washing- 
ton, alarmed at this enemy in the rear — this new peril which 
threatened the country — wrote that "idleness, dissipation and 
extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most ; speculation, 
peculation, and an insatiate thirst for riches have got the better 
of every other consideration and almost every order of men." 

At first the masses were enthusiastic ; but as the contest wore 
on, the slow friction of the struggle became irksome, and, in many 
quarters, apathy was almost universal. During the flight across 
New Jersey, not one hundred volunteers from that State rallied 
under the flag of their only defender. The Maryland militia, sent 
to Washington's aid just before the battle of Germantown, lost 
half its number by desertion. When Pennsylvania was overrun 
by the British, and the Federal capital in the hands of the enemy, 
there were only twelve hundred Pennsylvania militia in the 
army. Recruiting was slow ; very few enlistments were secured 
for three years, or during the war. Sabine says " that the price 
paid for a single recruit was sometimes as high as one thousand 
dollars, besides the bounty offered by Congress ; and that one hun- 
dred and fifty dollars in specie was given for only five months 
service." The soldier might be pardoned for deserting the cause 
of a country that would neither pay him nor feed him ; but what 
should be thought of a people that, before the war, could import 
one and a half million dollars worth of tea annually, besides 
other luxuries, and yet allow the men who were fighting for its 
liberties to starve and freeze in this hour of peril ? 



1778.] DEMORALIZATION IN THE ARMY. 253 

Even in the army which was engaged in protecting the dearest 
rights of man, all were not patriots nor honest men. Whigs were 
plundered under the pretence of being tories. Parties of a dozen 
or twenty men at a time returned home, or took refuge in the 
newer settlements of the country. In 1781, one thousand men 
perjured themselves to escape from the service, taking advantage 
of an error in the date of their enlistment. Some joined the 
royalist regiments, and became spies, guides, and informers. 
Bounty-jumpers infested the ranks. Drunkenness and theft were 
by no means uncommon. A foreigner of rank dying at Washing- 
ton's quarters, and being buried with his jewels and costly cloth- 
ing, a guard was placed over his grave to prevent the soldiers 
from digging up his body for plunder. Nor were the officers 
always better than their men. There were those who used for 
their own gratification, money designed to pay the troops under 
their command : who violated their furloughs, and grossly neg- 
lected their duty. Courts-martial were frequent, and long lists 
of the cashiered were from time to time forwarded to Congress. 
Washington declared that the officers sent him from one State 
were " not fit to be shoe-blacks," and wrote to a certain governor 
that the officers from his State were " generally from the lowest 
class, and led their men into every kind of mischief." Many of 
the surgeons, too, he complained, were rascals, receiving bribes 
to grant discharges, and applying to their private use the luxuries 
designed for the sick. There were constant feuds among the 
officers for rank and position. " I am wearied to death," wrote 
John Adams in 1777, " by the wrangles between military officers, 
high and low. They quarrel like cats and dogs." 

Members of Congress lost heart. Many of the strong men 
stayed at home and weaklings took their place. For some time 
only twenty-one members were present. A bitter opposition to 
Washington was developed, and while the demands upon him as 
commander-in-chief were as exacting as ever, his recommenda- 
tions and well-known opinions were openly thwarted or quietly 
ignored. Arnold was the oldest brigadier-general, and, in the 
opinion of Washington, there was " no more active, spirited, or 
sensible officer"; yet he was passed over in promotion. Stark, 
than whom none was braver, was also slighted, and he retired to 
his plow, and remained at home, until he came to Bennington to 
show how a victory could be won with raw militia. Gates was 
appointed adjutant-general without consulting Washington as to 



254 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [1778. 

whom he desired for chief of his staff. The commissary depart- 
ment was reorganized against Washington's expressed wishes. 
Colonel Trumbull, an efficient commissary-general, at once re- 
signed. Henceforth the bad working of that department caused 
continual delays and disasters. Mifflin, the quartermaster- 
general, was disgracefully unmindful of his duties. Washington 
never could get a stock of provisions on hand for any movement 
that he contemplated. Indeed, it is said that during the dreary 
march to Valley Forge, when the shivering troops left lines of 
red behind them from their bruised and bleeding feet, that 
" hogsheads of shoes, stockings, and clothing were lying at dif- 
ferent places on the roads and in the woods, perishing for want 
of teams, or of money to pay the teamsters." 

Officers who were jealous of Washington found men in the 
national council to listen to and even sympathize with them in 
their complaints. At first, General Charles Lee was considered a 
rival of Washington, and the victory which others achieved for 
him at Charleston, was contrasted with the disastrous defeat on 
Long Island. Then Gates was brought to the front, and Saratoga 
was put by the side of Brandywine to Washington's disadvan- 
tage. Indeed, Gates, after the surrender of Burgoyne, did not 
report to the head of the army, as courtesy and military usage 
demanded, but direct to Congress, Washington only receiving 
tidings of the event through hearsay and unofficial letters. Had 
Gates dispatched his army at once to Pennsylvania after the sur- 
render, as Washington desired and earnestly entreated, Howe 
might have been driven from Philadelphia, and the same fall, 
perhaps, his whole force captured, and Saratoga re-enacted at the 
Quaker city. Yet Congress, influenced, doubtless, by the advice 
of jealous officials, forbade Washington to detach any troops from 
the northern army without consulting General Gates and the 
governor of New York. It was only with the greatest difficulty 
and by finally sending his favorite aid, Alexander Hamilton, with 
peremptory orders from the commander-in-chief, that he secured 
reinforcements either from Gates or from Putnam. 

At last a cabal was organized to displace Washington from his 
post and elevate Gates in his stead. Chief in this movement was 
General Conway, a wily, unprincipled intriguer. Pennsylvania 
sent a remonstrance to Congress against the measures of Wash- 
ington. Members from Massachusetts re-echoed their disappro- 
bation. While the patriot army was marking out the path of 



1778.] 



INTRIGUES AGAINST WASHINGTON. 



255 



liberty with blood-stained feet, John Adams could write : " I wish 
the Continental army would prove that anything can be done. 
I am weary with so much insipidity." Samuel Adams, who was 
still more impatient, declared : " I have always been so very 
wrong-headed as not to be over-well pleased with what is called 
the Fabian war in America." Benjamin Rush, in a similar strain, 
affirmed that " a Gates, a Lee, and a Conway in a few weeks 
could render the army an irresistible body of men." 

In October, 1777, a board of war was created to have the 
general direction of military affairs. Gates became its president. 
He was urged to hasten on and 
save the country. Conway was 
made inspector-general, and his 
office declared independent of 
the commander-in-chief. By 
the advice of the board, an ex- 
pedition to Canada was planned, 
and, in order to detach Lafayette 
from Washington, to whom he 
clung with a chivalrous devo- 
tion, he was appointed to the 
command. With the quick ap- 
prehension of a loving heart, he 
detected the animus of the cabal. 
By the advice of Washington, 
however, he accepted the post. 
Proceeding to Yorktown, he 
found Gates at table, and was at 
once invited to join the repast. 
Toasts were given, and drunk in 
full glasses, according to the custom of the day. The marquis 
noticed a significant omission, and so offered as a sentiment, 
" Our commander-in-chief." It was drunk in silence. Washing- 
ton did all he could to fit out the expedition, but no one else 
aided, and Lafayette, indignant and disgusted at the failure of 
those who had promised him so much, returned to his friend and 
adviser. 

Washington was aware of these intrigues to remove him, 
but in perfect equipoise of mind and temper, with a patriotism 
that no disappointment or treachery could chill, and a noble 
superiority to all which affected only his personal reputation, he 




MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 



256 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [f 7 e 7 b £ 

wrote to Patrick Henry these magnificent words: " If THE CAUSE 

IS ADVANCED, INDIFFERENT IS IT TO ME WHERE OR IN WHAT 

quarter IT HAPPENS." Such generosity and devotion could but 
triumph at last. The army and most of the best men of the 
country implicitly trusted Washington. Their indignation 
toward his enemies was unbounded. The whole movement 
finally recoiled on the heads of its instigators. Congress began 
to perceive its error. The cabal lost its power. Neither Con- 
way nor Samuel Adams dared to show himself among the sol- 
diers. The office of inspector was taken from the former, and 
given to Baron Steuben. 

At the last, however, Conway was the only one of the in- 
triguers magnanimous enough to confess his fault. General 
Cadwallader, who was Washington's devoted friend, was so in- 
censed at his attempt to injure the commander-in-chief that he 
challenged him to personal combat. Conway, being wounded, 
mortally, as he believed, wrote the following letter to General 
Washington: "Sir: — I find myself just able to hold my pen 
during a few minutes, and take this opportunity of expressing my 
sincere grief for having done, written, or said anything disagree- 
able to your excellency. My career will soon be over ; therefore, 
justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You 
are, in my eyes, the great and good man. May you long enjoy 
the love, esteem, and veneration of these States, whose liberties 
you have asserted by your virtues." Washington, too great to 
harbor resentment, said, as he closed the epistle, " Poor Conway ! 
He never could have intended much wrong ; there is nothing to 
forgive." 

The particulars of this duel, as related in Garden's Anecdotes 
of the Revolution, so well illustrate the manner of conducting 
those affairs that they appear worthy of record. They show, says 
the narrator, that " though imperious circumstances may compel 
men of nice feeling to meet, the dictates of honor may be satisfied 
without the smallest deviation from the most rigid rules of polite- 
ness. When arrived at the appointed rendezvous, General Cad- 
wallader accompanied by General Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and 
General Conway by Colonel Morgan of Princeton, it was agreed 
by the seconds that on the word being given, the principals 
might fire in their own time, and at discretion, either by an off- 
hand shot, or by taking a deliberate aim. The parties having de- 
clared themselves ready, the word was given to proceed. Gen- 



Feb. 5 
1778. 



] ARRIVAL OF BARON STEUBEN. 257 



eral Conway immediately raised his pistol and fired with great 
composure, but without effect. General Cadwallader was about 
to do so, when a sudden gust of wind occurring, he kept his pistol 
down and remained tranquil. ' Why do you not fire, General 
Cadwallader?' exclaimed Conway. 'Because,' replied General 
Cadwallader, ' we came not here to trifle. Let the gale pass and 
I shall act my part.' ' You shall have a fair chance of performing 
it well,' rejoined Conway, and immediately presented a full front. 
General Cadwallader fired, and his ball entering the mouth of his 
antagonist, he fell directly forward on his face. Colonel Morgan, 
running to his assistance, found the blood spouting from behind 
his neck, and lifting up the club of his hair, saw the ball drop from 
it. It had passed through his head, greatly to the derangement 
of his tongue and teeth, but did not inflict a mortal wound. As 
soon as the blood was sufficiently washed away to allow him 
to speak, General Conway, turning to his opponent, said, good- 
humoredly, ' You fire, general, with much deliberation, and cer- 
tainly with a great deal of effect.' The parties then retired free 
from all resentment." 

Early in February, there arrived in camp at Valley Forge, 
Baron Steuben, a veteran of the Seven Years War under Fred- 
erick the Great. His advent was hailed with enthusiasm. The 
raw militia troops presented a sorry appearance to this able dis- 
ciplinarian, accustomed to the exact order of the Prussian army ; 
but he had sense to see what was needed, and to adapt his methods 
to the peculiar condition of the country. Soon the whole army 
was under drill, Steuben personally supervising every detail, even 
to the examination of each soldier's musket and accoutrements. 
His ignorance of the language was a sore worry and embarrass- 
ment to him, especially when he sought to explain any difficult 
manoeuvre to his raw learners. " The men blundered in their 
exercise ; the baron blundered in his English ; his French and 
German were of no avail ; he lost his temper, which was rather 
warm ; swore in all three languages at once, which made the 
matter worse," and was in an agony of despair until a New York 
officer, who spoke French, stepped forward and offered his ser- 
vices as interpreter. " Had I seen an angel from heaven," records 
the relieved Prussian, " I could not have been more rejoiced." 
Under his skillful discipline, the army, officers as well as men, 
soon showed marked signs of improvement. 

Baron Steuben had brought over with him a superior French 



258 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. U^nie.' 

cook to serve in the camp. This personage was horrified to find 
no utensils or conveniences for preparing the choice dishes on 
which he longed to show his skill. He applied to one of the men 
for information. " We cook our meat," was the reply, " by hang- 
ing it up by a string, and turning it before a good fire till suffi- 
ciently roasted." The poor cook, appalled at such a state of 
affairs, received the daily rations of beef and bread with the hope- 
less air of a martyr. He loved his master, and, with many shrugs 
and sighs and some oaths, tried to accommodate himself to the 
trying situation ; but at last his patience was exhausted, and he 
sought the baron's presence. " Under happier circumstances, 
mon General," he said, " it would be my ambition to serve you ; 
but here I have no chance to show my talents, and my honor 
obliges me to spare you my expense, since your wagoner is just as 
able to turn the string as I am." Baron Steuben afterward told 
this story with great effect to a company which expressed some 
surprise at the resignation of Robert Morris as government finan- 
cier. " Believe me, gentlemen," said the baron, " the treasury of 
America is just as empty as was my kitchen at Valley Forge; and 
Mr. Morris wisely retires, thinking it of very little consequence who 
turns the string." 

On March 2d, General Greene was appointed Quartermaster- 
General. He accepted the position for a year without compensa- 
tion. His efficient measures soon changed the condition of affairs. 
Provisions began to appear in camp. Even " Grim-visaged War," 
when well fed, wore a smile. Ladies, too, lent their charming 
presence. The little parlor of Mrs. Greene, who spoke French, 
quickly became a favorite resort for foreign officers, where her 
wit and graceful tact made her a reigning queen. Mrs. Washing- 
ton also came to spend the winter, and brighten the anxious life 
of her husband. At the little soirees "there was* tea or coffee, 
and pleasant conversation always, and music often ; no one who 
had a good voice being allowed to refuse a song." The courtly 
Morris and the brilliant Reed were there ; and Charles Carroll, 
who was to outlive them nearly all ; and Knox, whom Greene 
loved as a brother ; the loved and trusted Lafayette ; the gener- 
ous Steuben; and the stately De Kalb, who, as the soldier of 
Louis XV., had served against Steuben and his royal master 
Frederick, in the Seven Years War ; the dignified Sullivan and 
the gallant " Mad Anthony " Wayne ; and a host of others who 
forgot for a while the horrors and hardships of a soldier's life in 



May 2-20,-1 
1778. J 



ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 



259 




LOUIS XVI., MARIE ANTOINETTE, AND 
THE DAUPHIN. 



the delightful intercourse of friendship. Gates was transferred to 
the northern department again, and made subject to Washing- 
ton's orders. 

The capture of Burgoyne giving confidence to France, and the 
queen, Marie Antoinette, being our hearty ally, Louis XVI. was 
finally persuaded to acknowledge the 
independence of the United States 
and to make common cause with the 
Americans. May 2d, a messenger ar- 
rived in this country with the glad 
news. Four days after, there was a 
fete at Valley Forge, and a salute was 
fired in honor of Louis XVI. The 
disaster to Burgoyne, and the French 
Alliance, produced a great effect in 
England. There was a loud cry to 
put an end to the useless contest. 
The minority in parliament, op- 
posed to the government, again raised its warning voice. Fox 
wished to have the colonies declared free at once. Lord North's 

" Conciliatory Bills," as they were 
termed, were readily passed. 
These authorized the appoint- 
ment of commissioners to treat 
for peace with the government of 
the United Colonies. They could 
not grant independence, however, 
and that alone would satisfy the 
"rebels"; and so nothing came 
of the attempt at a reconciliation. 
General Howe's military career in the United States had not 
proved a success. He now resigned. The close of his inglorious 
residence in Philadelphia was celebrated by a famous pageant or 
mischianza, a sort of medley of tournament and regatta. Its 
splendor and mock heroics were the theme of merriment and 
wonder in the staid Quaker city for many a day. 

Just after this festival, Howe received news that Lafayette, 
with a large force, had taken post at Barren Hills, twelve miles 
nearer Philadelphia than Valley Forge, to watch the British army 
more closely. To cut off this detachment would shed a parting 
gleam of glory over his American career. He sent out General 




MEDAL COMMEMORATING THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN 
FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 



260 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. t Ju i778. 8 ' 

Grant by night with a picked body of men, while he followed 
with the main force. Lafayette was nearly taken ; but, by a skill- 
ful manoeuvre, he seized the only ford not guarded by the enemy, 
made a feint of attacking Grant, and while that general was get- 
ting ready for battle, the brave young Frenchman was on his way 
to Washington. Howe came back weary and disappointed from 
his bootless expedition. 

Clinton, who succeeded Howe, received orders to evacuate 
Philadelphia and to concentrate his forces at New York. As the 
commissioners, who had been sent over, as we have seen, to 
restore the old condition of affairs, landed in Philadelphia, they 
found the flight already begun. Sad was the fate of the aban- 
doned tories. " The winter's revelry was over ; honors and 
offices turned suddenly to bitterness and ashes, and papers of 
protection were only a peril." Three thousand houseless fugi- 
tives, carrying all they could save from the wreck, followed the 
army. Washington rapidly pursued the British across New 
Jersey. General Charles Lee held the advance. He had orders 
to attack the enemy ; instead, he grossly neglected his duty, even 
if he did not treacherously lead his troops into peril. 

It was a hot, sultry Sunday morning, June 28th. Washington, 
sitting on his horse near the Freehold meeting-house, west of 
Monmouth, was planning for the battle now just beginning, as 
he thought from the few dropping shots in the distance. Sud- 
denly he was startled by the news that the Americans were 
falling back. Spurring forward, he found the advance-guard in 
full flight before an overwhelming force. Riding up to Lee, he 
demanded, " Whence arises this disorder and confusion ? " Lee 
could only stammer "Sir — sir." Not. a minute could be lost. 
The genius of Washington never shone out more fully than now. 
Rallying the fugitives and judiciously posting a battery, he 
checked the pursuit upon a narrow causeway traversing a deep 
morass. A new line of battle was formed back of the swamp, 
General Stirling commanding the left, Greene the right, and 
Washington the centre. Wayne was posted in advance, under 
the protection of an orchard and a battery on Comb's Hill. The 
British attacking the left and right were several times repulsed. 
Finally Monckton advanced upon Wayne at the head of the 
English grenadiers. So perfect was their discipline and so accu- 
rately did they march, that it is said that a single ball striking in 
line with a platoon disarmed every man. As they came close to 



June 28,1 
1778. J 



BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. 



26l 



the American position, their leader waved his sword for the 
charge. Wayne at the same moment gave the order to fire. Every 
British officer fell. The men fought desperately over Monckton's 
body ; but the whole line finally gave way, and the patriots took 
possession of the hotly-contested field. Washington was prepar- 
ing in turn to attack the enemy, when night closed the struggle. 
Under cover of the darkness, Clinton withdrew his men. The 
American loss was about two hundred and thirty ; the English 




MOLLY PITCHER AT THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. 



lost over four hundred, and eight hundred more deserted their 
colors before they reached New York. Many of the troops on 
both sides, it is said, fell from the intense heat (ninety-six degrees 
in the shade) without a wound. 

During the day an artillery man was shot at his post. His 
wife, Mary Pitcher — a " red-haired, freckled-faced young Irish- 
woman," who was already distinguished for having fired the last 
gun at Fort Clinton — while bringing water to her husband from a 
spring, saw him fall and heard the commander order the piece to 
be removed from the field. Instantly dropping the pail, she 
hastened to the cannon, seized the rammer, and with great skill 
and courage performed her husband's duty. The soldiers gave 
her the nickname of Captain Molly. On the day after the battle, 
she was presented to Washington, and received a sergeant's com- 



262 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ J ,^ 8 8 - 

mission with half-pay through life. Her bravery made her a 
great favorite among the French officers, and she would some- 
times pass along the lines holding out her cocked-hat, which they 
would nearly fill with crown pieces. 

Lee, after Washington's rebuke, did nothing except to sit idly 
in the rear and declaim upon the madness of the attempt to fight 
the enemy. The next day he wrote to the general demanding 
an apology. Washington having replied in a dignified manner, 
Lee returned a most insulting letter, in which he grandiloquently 
expressed a hope that " temporary power of office and the tinsel 
dignity attending it would not be able, by the mists they could 
raise, to obfuscate the bright rays of truth." He was court-mar- 
tialled and suspended for a year. Later, for obtaining money 
from British officers, and for an insulting letter to Congress, he 
was dismissed from the service. 

Washington moved his army to the North River. In August, 
he thus wrote from White Plains : " After two years manoeuvring 
and the strangest vicissitudes, both armies are brought back to 
the very point they set out from, and the offending party at the 
beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for 
defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all 
this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and 
more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge 
his obligations." 

Congress now returned to Philadelphia. On the 15th of 
November, 1777, it had agreed upon articles of confederation for 
the closer union of the several States and the more perfect har- 
mony of their action. These had been accepted by eight of the 
States. The others were now called upon to " conclude the 
glorious compact." All agreed except Maryland, which refused 
on the plea that the public lands northwest of the Ohio should be 
the common property of the States. So the subject was post- 
poned, and the general government dragged along its feeble exist- 
ence, having, indeed, the right to advise and appoint, but being 
destitute of any power to demand or enforce. It was the era of 
State rights. 

The French fleet under Count d'Estaing having arrived off 
the coast, a combined land and naval expedition was planned to 
recover Rhode Island. Sullivan was placed in charge of the 
troops. Washington spared two brigades from his weakened 
ranks. New England in twenty days increased his forces to ten 



\rjfi1 MASSACRE AT WYOMING. 263 

thousand men. On the 29th of July, the French entered Narra- 
gansett Bay. Some days after, Howe arrived off the harbor with 
the English fleet. D'Estaing went out to meet him. A terrible 
storm came on, which so shattered both fleets that they were 
compelled to put back for repairs — the English to New York and 
the French to Boston. General Sullivan, though deserted, was 
loath to leave. Just as he began his retreat, the English at- 
tempted to cut off his right wing. Greene, by a brilliant attack, 
drove back the enemy, and secured the escape of the army just 
in time to avoid Clinton, who came up from New York with rein- 
forcements for the British. The French gave no further aid dur- 
ing the year. 

The beautiful Valley of Wyoming, famed in history and song, 
was settled mainly from Connecticut. The charter of that 
colony was older than that of Pennsylvania, and gave it a strip 
of land extending from sea to sea. Differences naturally arose 
with the Pennsylvania government. These were finally settled 
by an appeal to the king, who decided in favor of Connecticut. 
The colony was therefore created as the town of Westmoreland, 
and attached to Litchfield county. These local disputes faded 
out only in the more absorbing topics of the Revolution. This 
valley, smiling in peace and plenty, now lay open to attack from 
the Six Nations, who bitterly remembered the slaughter of their 
braves at Oriskany and panted for revenge. The able-bodied 
men were in the Continental regiments, and though they urged 
the defenceless condition of their wives and children, Congress 
took little or no action in their behalf. The women and the old 
men plowed, sowed, reaped, and made gunpowder for the little 
garrison in their forts, obtaining the nitre by leaching the soil 
under the floors of their houses. 

Early in the summer a force of five or six hundred men, 
consisting of Butler's Rangers, Johnson's Royal Greens, and a 
body of Indians, principally Senecas, under a celebrated chief 
named Giengwatah, or The-one-who-goes-in-the-smoke, dropped 
down the Chemung and Susquehanna Rivers in canoes, and on July 
1 st appeared in the Wyoming Valley. All was dismay. Those who 
could, fled to their forts. Two of their strongholds were quickly 
captured. Colonel Zebulon Butler of the Continental army, who 
happened to be at home, took command of the forlorn hope of 
three hundred soldiers — old men and boys — all that could be 
mustered for the defence of their homes. With these he marched 



264 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [*$£ 

out to meet the enemy. He found them near Wintermoot's 
Fort, near the site of the present village of Troy, ready to meet 
him. Outnumbered from the first, the Americans could have 
little hope. They held their ground bravely, however, for half 
an hour, when, their left being outflanked by an Indian ambush, 
Colonel Denison, in command at that point, gave the order to fall 
back. He was misunderstood, and the fatal word " retreat " was 
passed down the lines. The Indians sprang from their coverts, 
and a terrible massacre ensued. Few of the patriots escaped. 
Some were slain on the banks of the river ; some were toma- 
hawked among the bushes ; some fled to an island and were hunted 
to death. The Senecas took two hundred and twenty-five scalps. 
No mercy was shown. One tory brutally murdered his own 
brother while crying for quarter. Lieutenant Shoemaker, " whom 
to know was to love," was treacherously tomahawked by Win- 
decker, a man who had often received his generous bounty. 

That night, tories and Indians held high carnival. Captain 
Bidlack was thrown on the burning embers of the fort and 
held down with pitchforks till he expired. Sixteen prisoners 
were arranged around a large stone, still known as Queen 
Esther's rock. The savages held them while a Seneca half- 
breed by that name walked slowly round the circle, singing a 
death-song and striking them one by one, alternately with her 
hatchet and mallet. Two of the captives, breaking away, escaped 
to the bushes under a shower of balls. The next day, the forts 
surrendered. Though lives were spared thereafter, robbery and 
arson ran riot. Butler could not restrain his savage allies. The 
inhabitants fled from the scene of terror. The swamp through 
which they made their way is remembered to this day as the 
Shades of Death. Children were born and buried in this terrible 
flight. Many were lost in the wilderness and perished miserably. 
The fainting survivors straggled into the settlements on the other 
side of the mountains, famine-stricken and desolate. Meantime 
the savages pillaged and burned their deserted houses. Decked 
in their booty, they at last withdrew. " The appearance of the 
retiring enemy," says Lossing, " was extremely ludicrous, aside 
from the melancholy savagism that was presented. Many 
squaws accompanied the invaders, and these brought up the rear. 
Some had belts around their waists, made of scalps stretched 
on small hoops ; some had on from four to six dresses of chintz 
or silk, one over the other ; and others, mounted on stolen horses, 



Se | P 778-9. n "] OPERATIONS IN THE WEST. 265 

and seated ' not sidewise, but otherwise,' had on their heads four 
or five bonnets, one within another." 

Clinton, after his bootless expedition to Newport, returned to 
New York, detaching', however, Grey, of Paoli massacre mem- 
ory, to ravage the New England coast. New Bedford, Fair 
Haven, and Martha's Vineyard were laid waste. In September, 
Cornwallis led a foray into New Jersey, during which " No-flint 
Grey " surprised Baylor's light-horse while they were quietly 
resting- in some barns in Old Tappan. Cries for mercy fell on 
deaf ears. Eleven of the dragoons were butchered, and twenty- 
five desperately mangled by bayonet thrusts, some receiving as 
many as sixteen wounds. At the same time, Captain Ferguson 
emulated his rival in the bayonet exercise by destroying the ship- 
ping in Little Egg Harbor, and thence scouring the adjacent 
country, burning the houses of those who were pointed out as 
patriots by the tories who accompanied the expedition. Count 
Pulaski had been sent out with his legion to check these preda- 
tory incursions. Ferguson, going up the river in boats during 
the night of the 15th of October, noiselessly surrounded the 
house in which Pulaski's infantry was quartered. " It being a 
night attack," wrote the captain afterward in his report, " little 
quarter could be given, so there were only five prisoners." 

The western part of Virginia and Kentucky would have suf- 
fered equally with Wyoming Valley had it not been for the energy 
and vigilance of Colonel Clark. Hamilton, the British general at 
Detroit, was busy in organizing parties of savages for forays upon 
the defenceless frontier settlement. He offered rewards for scalps, 
not for prisoners, and was known as the " hair-buying general." 
Clark, by a bold dash, seized Kaskaskia, and the county of Illinois 
became a part of Virginia. Hamilton, thereupon invading the 
country, summoned the post of Vincennes to surrender. Captain 
Helm had but one man as garrison, but maintained a bold front, 
and standing with lighted match over a cannon, he deceived the 
enemy and secured the honors of war. Hamilton was now more 
active than ever in preparing for bloody work. The ensuing win- 
ter, Clark, whose situation looked desperate, finding that Hamil- 
ton had sent off most of his men on predatory excursions, sud- 
denly set out in January with one hundred and thirty bold men 
to recapture Vincennes. The river was high, and in crossing the 
" drowned lands " of the Wabash they had to wade for miles with 
the icy water breast high. But he resolutely kept on, and laid 



266 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. ["(778?' 

siege to the fort, which, with its garrison and governor, fell into 
his hands. 

The ioth of November saw the terrible scenes of Wyoming 
repeated in Cherry Valley, New York. A body of tories, regulars 
and Indians, under Walter Butler, son of John Butler, and Brandt, 
the Mohawk chief, crept into this settlement under cover of the 
early morning mist. The fort, garrisoned by Continental troops, 
was too strong to be carried, but over thirty of the inhabitants — 
men, women and children — were murdered, and all the houses 
fired. Brandt showed mercy at times, but the tories, " more 
savage than the savages," knew no pity. Mr. Wells was cut 
down while at prayer. A mother and her innocent babe were 
slain in bed together. After the marauders had gone away with 
their booty, the survivors timidly stole back to find the mangled 
bodies of fathers, mothers, wives, husbands and children amid the 
burning timbers of their homes. 

Brandt afterward pushed his incursions into Orange county. 
Here, we are told, one day the savages came to a school-house 
which was filled with young children. They took the school- 
master into the woods and killed him. They then clove the skulls 
of several of the boys with their tomahawks ; but the little girls, 
who stood looking on horror-struck, and waiting for instant 
death, were spared. A tall savage — it was Brandt — dashed a 
mark of black paint upon their aprons, and when the other sav- 
ages saw it they left them unharmed. Swift as an inspiration, the 
little girls resolved to save their brothers. They flung over them 
their aprons, and when the next Indians passed by, they were 
spared for the mark they bore. 

The Six Nations had not taken the field until 1777 at the 
battle of Oriskany. Their determination to bear arms against 
the colonists, with whom they had fought so bravely during the 
French and Indian war, was due to the influence of the Johnsons. 
Sir William had been knighted for the victory of Lake George. 
After the war, he received a tract of one hundred thousand acres 
north of the Mohawk, long known as " Kingsland." In 1764, he 
built Johnson Hall, near Johnstown, about twenty -five miles west 
of Schenectady. 

Here he lived with the splendor of an old feudal baron, and 
dispensed a lavish hospitality. His influence over the Indians 
was almost unbounded. Many anecdotes are told of his shrewd- 
ness in dealing with them. Allen relates that on his receiving 



1775-1778.] THE JOHNSONS AND THE SIX NATIONS. 267 

from England some fine laced clothes, the Mohawk chief, Hen- 
drick, desiring to equal the baronet in the splendor of his apparel, 
with a demure face pretended to have dreamed that Sir William 
had presented him with a suit of the decorated garments. As the 
solemn hint could not be mistaken or avoided, the Indian mon- 
arch was gratified, and went away highly pleased with the success 
of his device. But, alas for Hendrick's short-sighted sagacity, in 
a few days, Sir William, in turn, had a dream, to the effect that 
the chief had given him several thousand acres of land. " The 
land is yours," said Hendrick ; " but now, Sir William, I never 
dream with you again ; you dream too hard for me." 

When the difficulties arose with England, the contest in Sir 
William's mind between his love of liberty and his loyalty to the 
king brought on a fit of apoplexy, of which he died. His son and 
heir, Sir John Johnson, and his sons-in-law, Colonel Guy Johnson 
and Colonel Claus, felt no reluctance in supporting the royal 
cause. They at first fortified their stone mansions in the Mohawk 
Valley, armed their Scotch tenants, and, with their adherents, the 
Butlers of Tryon county, and Brandt, the great Mohawk sachem, 
prepared for defence. Finally they all fled to Canada. The Six 
Nations declared for the crown. Sir John raised a body of tories, 
known as the Royal Greens. Their names were henceforth asso- 
ciated with deeds of crime and bloodshed, in which the tories far 
surpassed their Indian allies. Wyoming and Cherry Valleys 
were only illustrations on a large scale of minor massacres which 
kept in continued dread the entire frontier to the very suburbs 
of Albany. 

The peace commissioners returning to England after their 
unsuccessful mission to the United States, were fierce in their 
denunciations. " No quarter," exclaimed one of their number, 
" ought to be shown to their Congress. If the infernals could be 
let loose on them, I should approve the measure." The govern- 
ment did not have it all its own way, however. The Bishop of 
Peterborough called attention to the significant fact that in the 
army-appropriation was an item for "scalping-knives" ; and many 
followed him denouncing the use of such instruments of war. 

The English, discouraged by their repeated failures in the 
Eastern and Middle States, now decided to transfer their forces to 
the South. Henceforth, the Revolutionary struggle was mainly 
confined to that field. In combination with various minor move- 
ments, three thousand men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, 



268 FOURTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [°?778. 9, 

were sent from New York, and on December 23d appeared off 
Tybee Island. Soon after, the fleet passed the bar and the troops 
landed near Five-fathom Hole. General Howe, with his little 
army of militia, not a third as large as that of the enemy, resolved 
to fight for the defence of Savannah. He accordingly took a 
strong position at the head of a causeway, with a swamp on one 
side and rice-fields on the other. The British, having driven his 
advance from Brewton's Hill, manoeuvred as if to assault in front. 
Meanwhile, guided by a negro named Quamino Dolly, Sir James 
Baird and a party passed through a by-path in the swamp and 
turned the American position. The patriots, attacked at once in 
front and rear, soon gave way in despair. Some were drowned 
in the swamp, and many were captured. The pursuers, chasing 
the refugees through the town, bayoneted several unarmed citi- 
zens whom they found on the streets. So the English captured 
Savannah, the capital of Georgia, including all its extensive stores, 
with a total loss of only twenty-four killed and wounded. The 
captives, refusing to enlist in the British army, were hurried 
into the prison-ships to speedily die of disease. Protection was 
offered to those of the inhabitants who would return to their 
allegiance. Numbers flocked to the British standard, while many 
patriots fled to the uplands and to Carolina. 

After his gallant exploit at Charleston, Sergeant Jasper re- 
ceived from Colonel Moultrie a roving commission entitling him 
to form a scouting command. His spies often proved of great 
service to the American army. At one time, he remained in 
Savannah, after its capture by the British, several days, collect- 
ing valuable information concerning the English forces and their 
position. Some of his adventures were full of romance. One, 
especially, has become historical. 

Near Ebenezer, he met a Mrs. Jones, whose story awakened 
his sympathies. Her husband had taken the oath of allegiance to 
the British government, but afterward joined the American 
army. Having been captured, he was now, with several compan- 
ions, en route to Savannah, to be tried and probably hanged. Ser- 
geant Jasper and his friend Newton determined to rescue the 
prisoners. Thinking that the party would stop to drink at a 
pleasant spring about two miles out of Savannah, the two patriots 
went ahead, and, hiding themselves in the bushes near by, awaited 
the turn of affairs. Upon reaching the point, the guard stacked 
arms, leaving two of their number in charge of the prisoners. 



im] 



EXPLOIT OF SERGEANT JASPER. 



269 



Taking advantage of a moment when the sentinels' backs were 
turned, Jasper and Newton sprang from their covert, seized the 
guns, shot the two armed soldiers, and called upon the rest to 
surrender. They had no resource but to yield. The irons were 
knocked off the prisoners and placed on the late guard. The 
whole party then, redeemed friends and captive soldiers, marched 
into the American camp at Purysburg. 

The next year, when Jasper lay dying before the fortifications 
of Savannah, his last words were, " Tell Jones, his wife and son, 
that the remembrance of the battle I fought for them brought a 
secret joy to my heart when it was about to stop its motion for- 
ever." The spring, named after Jasper, is now neatly walled in, 
and is the resort of hundreds of visitors. 




JOSEPH BRANDT. 

(From a Painting by Cat tin.) 



CHAPTER VI. 

FIFTH YEAR OF THE (REVOLUTION— -l^g. 




'J/' 



ITH the opening of the year the 
English vigorously pushed their 
success at the South. General 
Prevost, commanding the royal 
forces in Florida, marched across 
the wilderness, captured Sun- 
bury, the only fort in Georgia 
occupied by the Americans, 
reached Savannah, and assumed 
command. Campbell was sent 
to take possession of Augusta. 
The whole State lay at his mercy. 
Sir James Wright was reinstated 
governor, and all things were restored as in the good old times 
before the war. England could once more boast of a royal pro- 
vince among her former colonies. The conquest of South Caro- 
lina now seemed imminent. Meanwhile, Major-General Lincoln 
had arrived to take command of the patriot troops in the southern 
department. His little force of eleven hundred men was en- 
camped on the Savannah, near Purysburg. Port Royal being 
taken by a British detachment which landed from their ships, 
Moultrie was sent to drive them out. Rallying some militia to 
his standard, he accomplished the task in gallant style. 

A large body of North Carolina royalists having started to 
join Prevost at Augusta, Colonel Pickens, with a party of citizens 
from Ninety-Six, fell upon them at Kettle Creek as they were 
plundering about the country, and put them to rout. Seventy of 
the prisoners were tried by jury and convicted of treason. Five 
of the most influential were executed. This mode of treating pris- 
oners of war was a dangerous precedent, and served as an excuse 
to the British for similar usage on a more extended scale. 



Mar-May, j CAMPAIGN IN GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 2J\ 

Lincoln, being reinforced, had hopes of recovering Northern 
Georgia. He accordingly detached General Ashe with fifteen 
hundred men to take post opposite Augusta. At his coming, the 
British evacuated the town. Ashe thereupon crossed the river, 
and followed on nearly to Brier Creek, half way to Savannah. 
He had apparently " never heard of military discipline and vigi- 
lance." On the 3d of March, Prevost surprised his position. The 
militia threw away their guns and fled at the first fire. The Con- 
tinentals, sixty strong, fought bravely, but uselessly. Of the 
whole detachment, only four hundred and fifty, by wading the 
swamp and swimming the river, rejoined Lincoln in camp. 

Leaving Moultrie with one thousand militia to guard the pas- 
sage of the Savannah, Lincoln now crossed the river and marched 
up toward Augusta, hoping to protect the legislature of Geor- 
gia, then about to convene. Prevost also immediately crossed, 
and, driving Moultrie before him, moved towards Charleston. 
He was accompanied by Indians, and still more relentless tory 
allies. It was a grand marauding time. Every house belonging 
to a whig was robbed of money, jewelry, and even furniture. 
Windows, mirrors, and crockery were wantonly broken. Ani- 
mals which could not be driven off, were shot. Tombs were 
desecrated. Gardens were trampled underfoot. The appear- 
ance of this banditti before Charleston, May nth, aroused the 
deepest anxiety. Had Prevost arrived two days earlier he might 
have taken the city at once. Fortifications had been hastily 
thrown up ; troops had arrived, and there was now a chance of 
defence. The council, however, parleyed with the enemy, sure 
at least of gaining time. At this juncture South Carolina felt 
itself alone. Washington had been able to send South but few 
men. Congress had done nothing except to commend the arm- 
ing of the slaves — a proposition indignantly rejected by the Caro- 
linians. 

Rutledge, against the bitter opposition of such men as 
Laurens, Gadsden, Ferguson, and Edwards, proposed that South 
Carolina should remain neutral during the rest of the war. Pre- 
vost declined the offer. " Then we will fight it out," exclaimed 
Moultrie, and forthwith waved the flag from the city gate as a 
signal that debate was over. But Prevost had learned that Lin- 
coln was coming by forced marches, and so, after gathering what 
plunder he could in the neighborhood, he retired to St. John's 
Island. Lincoln, on his arrival, prepared an attack on the re- 



272 



FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



rMay, 
U779. 



doubts which protected the ferry across the Stono River to the 
island. He was repulsed. Soon after, Prevost, unperceived, 
escaped by interior navigation to Georgia, leaving Lieutenant- 
Colonel Maitland with a garrison 
at Beaufort. Summer heats, like 
winter colds at the North, now 
prevented further operations. 

The outrages committed by 
Prevost's men 
were long re- 
membered. A 
large body took 

possession ot \ at 7?^ ->• ^"X ? \ the house and 

plantation of 
Mr. Robert 
Gibbes on the 
Stono River. 
This gentle- 
man had an 
aged and in- 
firm brother, 
Mr. John Gib- 
bes, who was 
then on a visit 
to him from 
his beautiful 
home near 
Charleston, 
where his 
grounds were 
laid out with 
exquisite taste 
and at a great 
expense. A 
Major Sheri- 
dan, arriving 

at Mr. Robert Gibbes's from the army on the Neck, was asked 
by an officer in the presence of the brothers, "What news? 
Shall we take the city ? " "I fear not," replied Sheridan, " but 
we have made glorious havoc of the property round about. 
I witnessed yesterday the destruction of an elegant establish- 




Mar. 26, 
1779 



, '] DEPREDATIONS IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 273 



ment belonging to an arch-rebel, who, luckily for himself, was 
absent. You would have been delighted to see how quickly 
the pine-apples were shared among our men, and how rapidly 
his trees and ornamental shrubs were leveled with the dust." 
Mr. John Gibbes, who recognized his own place in this de- 
scription, could not restrain his indignation, and, fearless of 
consequences, exclaimed, " I hope that the Almighty will cause 
the arm of the scoundrel who struck the first blow to wither to 
the shoulder." Sheridan uttered a threatening retort, but his 
commanding officer, who divined the truth, advised him for his 
own credit to be silent. Mr. Gibbes so seriously felt the outrage 
and the loss that he retired to his bed and never rose again. Not 
long afterward the whole family was ordered to leave, fire having 
been opened upon the house and neighboring encampment from 
some Charleston galleys, which had quietly ascended the river. 
It was midnight, dark and rainy. Mr. Gibbes, who was ill, 
started out with his large household for an adjoining plantation. 
When out of reach of the pelting shot, they halted for a moment 
to see if all were present. To their dismay, they found that one 
little boy — a distant relative — had been left behind. The servants 
were entreated to return for him, but utterly refused. Miss 
Mary Anna Gibbes, a young girl of thirteen, resolutely under- 
took the mission, ran the long mile through the rain and darkness, 
obtained, by many tears and pleadings, an admission to the house, 
secured the babe, and carried him in her arms through a storm 
of grape and round shot, which frequently covered her person 
with dirt as they struck the ground at her side, safe to the retreat 
of her family. The boy thus saved became the gallant Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Fenwick, distinguished in the war of 181 2. 

Washington's army passed the winter in a line of positions 
extending from the Highlands to the Delaware. Clinton's in- 
structions permitted only a series of predatory excursions, and 
little was attempted on either side. Signals were devised to give 
warning when the British parties left New York. On Battle Hill, 
sentinels were placed, with orders by day to fire a big gun 
familiarly called the " Old Sow," and at night to kindle a beacon. 
These signals, repeated from hill to hill, quickly spread the alarm 
through the country. 

One day in March, General Putnam, while shaving at his 
headquarters at Horse Neck, saw in his mirror the reflection of a 
body of British coming up the road. Changing his razor for a 
18 



2/4 FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [^im?*' 

sword, he darted out, mounted his horse, and gathered his men 
upon a hill near by to resist their advance. The overwhelming 
forces of the enemy at length compelled him to flee. Ordering his 
troops to scatter into a neighboring swamp, he spurred his own 
horse over a precipice and descended a zigzag path, where the 
British dragoons did not dare to follow. Tryon, who was in 
command of the English, plundered the neighboring people, 
destroyed the salt works, and then retreated to King's Bridge. 
But the irrepressible Putnam was after him, and on the way 
recovered most of the booty. 

During Prevost's plundering raid in South Carolina, General 
Matthews was sent from New York to Virginia on a similar expe- 
dition. He cast anchor in Hampton Roads May 9th. Predatory 
parties ascended the James and the Elizabeth Rivers. Ports- 
mouth and Norfolk — the latter just recovering from its destruc- 
tion by Dunmore — was seized, and the inhabitants brutally 
maltreated. One hundred and thirty vessels were captured. 
Plantations were pillaged and the buildings fired. Every house 
save one in Suffolk county was burned. Matthews returned to 
New York with a rich booty, consisting in part of three thousand 
hogsheads of tobacco. He had inflicted a damage of two million 
dollars, without advancing the royal cause in any sense. 

On the return of this expedition, Clinton ascended the Hud- 
son and captured the works at Stony Point and Verplanck's 
Point, which guarded King's Ferry. The American army had 
now no means of communication between New England and the 
Middle States below the Highlands. 

Connecticut was next to feel the heavy hand of the invader. 
On the evening of the 4th of July, the inhabitants of New Haven 
were startled by the appearance of a fleet in the bay. Early the 
next morning, troops were rapidly landed. Tryon was again out 
with his royalists and Hessians on their favorite work. They 
were soon busy at plunder. The militia, however, rallied and 
drove off the marauding bands both here and at East Haven. Dr« 
Daggett, ex-president of Yale College, was barbarously mal- 
treated while resisting the advance of the enemy. When threat- 
eningly asked if he " would take up arms again," he bravely 
answered, " I rather think I shall if I get an opportunity." Fair- 
field, Norwalk, and Greenwich were next visited, pillaged, and 
burned. Tryon boasted of his clemency in sparing a single 
house. Unarmed men were brutally murdered. Females were 



July I6,t 
1779. J 



CAPTURE OF STONY POINT. 



275 



insulted. For day^ afterward, women, half frantic with grief and 
fear, were found wandering through the neighboring woods. 
The expedition was preparing to make a descent on New London 
when it was recalled by General Wayne's famous exploit at 
Stony Point. 

Washington looked with an envious eye on the British pos- 
session of Stony Point, and had resolved upon its recapture. 
Upon making known his wishes to Wayne, that general re- 
plied, " I will storm h — 1 if you will only lay the plan." The 




GIVING THE COUNTERSIGN AT STONY POINT. 



fort was on an eminence, washed on three sides by the river, the 
fourth being protected by a marsh that was overflowed at flood- 
tide. The only hope lay in a surprise. Twelve hundred men 
were selected, and marched through swamps until within a mile 
and a half of the enemy, where they were concealed. The coun- 
tersign, which, curiously enough, was " The fort is ours," was 
obtained of a negro who was in the habit of selling strawberries 
at the fort. He guided the troops in the darkness to the causeway 
leading over the flooded marsh around the foot of the hill. The 
unsuspicious sentinel, having received the countersign, was 
chatting with the negro, when he was suddenly seized and 
gagged by two soldiers dressed as farmers. Wayne's men 



276 FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. l^vni? 

passed over the causeway and reached the base of the hill undis- 
covered, where they seized the second sentinel in the same man- 
ner. Forming in two columns, with unloaded muskets and fixed 
bayonets, just after midnight they commenced the ascent of the 
steep and rugged slope. A forlorn hope of twenty men pre- 
ceded each to remove the abattis. They had nearly reached the 
picket before they were discovered. Fire was at once opened 
upon them. Wayne was wounded, but commanded his aids to 
carry him that he might die at the head of his column. The rush 
of his men was irresistible. An instant more, and a deafening 
shout told that the fort was won. Both columns reached the 
centre of the works at nearly the same time. The British lost in 
killed and prisoners six hundred and six men, and the Ameri- 
cans but ninety-eight. Even English authorities agree that the 
Americans did not take the life of a man except in fair fight. On 
account of the vicinity of the main army under Clinton, Washing- 
ton ordered the fort to be evacuated. The stores were all re- 
moved and the works razed to the ground. 

August 19th, Major Henry Lee rivaled this brilliant exploit 
of Wayne's by the capture of Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, in 
sight of New York, and almost in range of its guns. Reaching 
the neighborhood of the fort before daylight, his detachment was 
mistaken by the sentinel for a foraging party and allowed to pass. 
The Americans were inside the works before the garrison was 
fairly awake. Major Sutherland, the commander of the post, 
threw himself with sixty Hessians into a block-house and opened 
fire ; but Lee had no time for an assault, as alarm-guns began 
ilready to be heard. Collecting one hundred and fifty-nine pris- 
oners, he retired as rapidly as he had come. Lee received a gold 
medal from Congress for this feat. 

While everything under Washington's immediate eye was 
thus favorable, an expedition sent out by Massachusetts against 
the British at Fort Castine, on the Penobscot, proved a total and 
disgraceful failure. It consisted of nineteen vessels, carrying 
over three hundred guns, and twenty-four transports, bearing 
one thousand men. It reached its destination July 25th. Delays 
followed. Finally a British fleet dispersed the naval forces, when 
the land troops were glad to make their way home through the 
wilderness as best they could. 

The continued Indian and tory atrocities in the Wyoming and 
Mohawk valleys threatened to depopulate these fertile regions. 



*"&$?'] THE BATTLE OF CHEMUNG. 277 

It was now felt that such a punishment must be inflicted upon 
the Six Nations as would deter them from further incursions. 
General Sullivan accordingly organized for this purpose a force 
of about three thousand men. Late in August he moved north- 
ward from Wyoming, the artillery and stores being drawn up the 
Susquehanna in one hundred and fifty boats. At Tioga he was 
joined by General Clinton with one thousand New York troops. 
The latter had marched from Albany, up the Mohawk to Canajo- 
harie, and thence ascending Canajoharie Creek, had reached Ot- 
sego Lake. Finding the water of the outlet too low to float his 
bateaux, he built a dam across the stream, by which the lake was 
raised several feet. When the dam was cut, the boats glided 
easily down to Tioga upon the rushing water. The Indians fled 
in dismay at the sight of a flood in the midst of the summer 
drought, believing it a signal proof of the displeasure of the Great 
Spirit. 

On the 26th, the combined forces ascended the Chemung, 
an Indian word for Big Horn. Sullivan carefully provided 
against the danger of a surprise. Large flanking parties were 
thrown on each side of the line of march, and strong guards were 
in front and rear. Reaching a place called Hog's Back, they found 
the Indians under Brandt, Corn-Planter, and Red Jacket, and the 
tories under Sir John Johnson and the Butlers, awaiting their ap- 
proach. They were about eight hundred in all, and occupied a 
strong position. Their left rested on the hill and their right on a 
ridge running parallel with the river. They had regular entrench- 
ments thrown up nearly half a mile in length, and were also 
protected by the pines and shrub-oaks covering the ground. 
The works were artfully concealed by green boughs planted in 
front. Sullivan at once ordered General Hand and the rifle 
corps to attack in front, while Generals Poor and Clinton, with 
their brigades, cleared the hill on the Indian left. This was done 
in fine style. The savages, leaping from tree to tree and rock 
to rock, though greatly alarmed by the fire of the artillery, dis- 
puted every inch ; while Brandt, animating his followers, ranged 
the field like a very demon. Night was coming on, and the 
assaulting columns seemed to falter for a moment. Then, as the 
legend says, there hovered above them, amid the smoke of the 
battle, the vision of a mother clasping her babe in her bosom and 
shielding it from an uplifted tomahawk. The troops instantly, 
as if by an inspiration, dashed forward. Poor and Clinton swept 



278 FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [f$£ 

the hill at the point of the bayonet. Brandt, despairing, raised 
the shrill cry, " Oonah ! Oonah ! " and the whole body fled in con- 
fusion. The Americans, in spite of the desperation of the Iro- 
quois, lost only five or six men and fifty wounded. 

The Indians, satisfied that they could not resist this powerful 
force, gave up in despair. Sullivan, marching up the river about 
seven miles, came to an Indian village called Conewawah — an 
Iroquois term meaning a-head-on-a-pole — afterward the site of a 
settlement known as Newtown, and now Elmira. This he de- 
stroyed, and thence proceeded to Queen Catharine's Town, now 
Havana, near the head of Seneca Lake. 

The Senecas and the Cayugas had regularly-laid-out villages, 
and lived in framed houses, many of them painted and hav- 
ing chimneys. Their fields were large and fruitful, especially in 
the Genesee Valley, and were covered with orchards of apple, 
pear and peach trees. " At Wyoming, no mercy was shown but 
the hatchet ; here, none but the firebrand." The army marched 
resistlessly to and fro through the whole country from the Che- 
mung to the Genesee, destroying their waving fields of maize, 
ruining their orchards and burning their villages. The Christian 
emulated the savage in the barbarity of war. Kanadaseagea, now 
Geneva, the capital of the Senecas ; Schoyere, near Cayuga Lake ; 
Kanandaigua, a town at the head of the beautiful lake by the 
same name ; and Honeoye, were all destroyed without resistance. 

When the army entered the Valley of the Genesee, the In- 
dians, having hidden their women and children in the forest, were 
lying in wait on the flats toward the head of Connissius Lake ; but 
the vanguard of the invading force put them to flight. Approach- 
ing Little Beard's town, Lieutenant Boyd was sent forward with 
a party to reconnoitre. While on his return he fell into an am- 
bush prepared by Brandt and his warriors. Nearly all Boyd's 
men were killed ; he was taken and put to death with cruel tor- 
tures. Thence Sullivan spread his troops wide over the smiling 
valley, laying waste magnificent fields of grain, destroying forty 
towns — among them Genesee, the capital of the Six Nations — and 
leaving only a blackened waste of all that beautiful region. It was 
expected that he would push westward and destroy the English 
fort at Niagara, which was the very focus of Indian and British 
intrigue ; but he had moved so slowly that he was compelled to 
return without accomplishing this greatly desired result. Just 
before reaching the Chemung again, forage gave out, and Sulli- 



Oct. 9, 
1779, 



] ATTACK UPON SAVANNAH. 279 



van ordered several hundred horses to be killed. This equine 
Golgotha has since retained the name of Horse-Heads. 

The Six Nations were subdued for the moment ; but their 
ritter hatred was aroused, and they swore vengeance against 
Washington, whom they styled the Town-destroyer. Yet, singu- 
larly, their veneration for him was never lessened. According to 
their belief, no white man except Washington ever reached 
heaven. Their legends represent him as occupying a fort-like 
mansion at the gate of the happy hunting-grounds. He walks in 
full uniform to and fro, in " meditation, fancy free," and the faithful 
Indians see him, but always pass in respectful silence. 

On the first of September, the French fleet of twenty ships- 
of-the-line, under d'Estaing, appeared off the coast of Georgia. 
A combined attack upon Savannah was now arranged with Lin- 
coln. The militia of South Carolina turned out with alacrity, 
and Washington despatched several North Carolina regiments 
for this service. The combined forces, however, were not able to 
commence operations till the 23d, although the French had already 
landed and summoned Prevost to surrender. The British had 
thoroughly improved the delay, called in their forces, thrown up 
entrenchments, and were well prepared for defence. Two weeks 
of bombardment from the trenches and the shipping followed, 
without any marked result. D'Estaing became impatient. The 
autumnal gales were approaching ; his fleet lay off the open 
coast, and delays were full of peril. On October 8th it was de- 
cided that the next day should witness an assault. It was gal- 
lantly executed, but was a failure almost from the start. A col- 
umn under Count Dillon was to have fallen on the English rear ; 
but, becoming entangled in the swamp, it was beaten back by the 
enemy's guns without attempting an attack. The French and 
American columns reached the works in front under a heavy fire, 
the former planting a banner on the parapet. Lieutenants Bush 
and Hume, of the second South Carolina regiment, leaped to the 
top with the colors given to them at Fort Moultrie. Both officers 
were killed. Sergeant Jasper, springing to their help, fell mor- 
tally wounded. In his dying moments, he managed to creep 
away with the banner he had sworn to protect. Laurens him- 
self, struggling in the thickest of the fight, in despair at the 
retreat of his men, threw away his sword, and, stretching out his 
hands, it is said, " prayed for death." Pulaski, carrying a banner 
placed in his hands by the Moravian nuns, was struck down by a 



280 FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. Fmi 

cannon-ball, at the head of his legion. D'Estaing was twice 
wounded. A dashing charge of grenadiers and marines from the 
city now drove the assailants back to their lines. The Americans 
had lost in this fruitless enterprise over four hundred, and the 
French about six hundred men, while the British had suffered but 
slightly. D'Estaing immediately sailed away. Lincoln retired 
to Charleston with what he could save of his army, and the 
militia scattered to their homes or took to the swamps. 

While the French-American army was thus unsuccessfully 
engaged in the siege of Savannah, Colonel White of Georgia 
achieved a feat which borders on the marvelous. Learning 
that Captain French and a party of British regulars, with five 
vessels, four of which were armed, one carrying fourteen guns, 
were on the Ogeechee, about twenty-five miles below the city, 
he determined to attempt their capture. He had only a captain 
and three soldiers. He lighted many fires in the woods, so 
as to give the appearance of a camp. To complete the strata- 
gem, he then, accompanied by his four companions, rode hither 
and thither, after the manner of a general and his staff, inspecting 
his lines and giving his orders. The English officer was next 
summoned to capitulate. Thinking himself about to be attacked 
by a great body of the enemy, French surrendered his detach- 
ment, ships, and crews (October ist). White now pretended 
that he must keep his men in the camp, in order to restrain their 
fury, and prevent an indiscriminate slaughter of the prisoners. 
He therefore delivered French and his party into the hands of 
three guides, who would conduct them to a place of safety. They 
had orders to move off as rapidly as possible. Meanwhile, 
White, who had stayed behind to " bring up the main body," 
hastened into the country with his remaining soldier, quickly 
collected a force of militia, and finally overtook his captives, who 
were proceeding along comfortably under the care of his guides, 
and were full of thankfulness for his merciful consideration. 

No American successes caused more annoyance to the British 
than those of the navy. In 1775, Washington sent out several 
vessels to cruise along the New England coast as privateers. In 
the same year Congress established a naval department. Thir- 
teen ships were ordered to be fitted out and two battalions of 
seamen enlisted. So anxious was the American government, that 
Washington was forced to divide his scanty store of supplies with 
the newly-fledged fleet. Swift-sailing vessels, manned by bold 



Sept. 23,n 
1779. J 



CAPTURE OF THE SERAPIS. 



28l 



seamen, soon infested every avenue of commerce. Within three 
years they captured five hundred ships. They even cruised 
among the British Isles, and, entering the harbors, seized and 
burned ships lying at English wharves. 

Paul Jones was among the most famous of these naval heroes. 
In six weeks he is said to have taken sixteen prizes. While 
cruising off England, Septem- 
ber, 1779, in the forty -gun ship 
Bon Homme Richard, named 
in honor of the Poor Richard 
of Franklin's Almanac, he came 
across the Serapis, carrying forty- 
four guns. Jones at once laid 
his vessel alongside. Twice the 
ships fell afoul each other. The 




CAPTURE OF THE SERAHS BY THE BON HOMME RICHARD. 

first time, the Serapis hailed the Richard, asking if she had 
" struck her colors." " I have not yet begun to fight," was Jones's 
reply. The second time, with his own hands he aided in lashing 
the vessels together. For two hours longer the crews fought 
hand to hand, with musket, pike, and cutlass. The muzzles of the 



282 



FIFTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



rSept. 23, 
L 1779. 



guns touched, and the gunners, in working their pieces, often 
thrust their ramrods into the port-holes of the other ship. The 
Bon Homme was old and rotten, and soon became almost un- 
manageable. Water poured into the hold. Only three of the 
guns could be worked. The ship was really beaten, and only the 
stout heart of Jones held out. Three times both vessels were on 
fire. At last, sailors on the yards of the Bon Homme dropped 
hand-grenades down the hatchway of the Serapis. An explo- 
sion ensued ; twenty men were blown to pieces, and forty were 
disabled. The Serapis thereupon struck her colors. The Bon 
Homme was already sinking, and Jones transferred his men to 
the captured frigate. 

At this time, Jones was in command of five vessels — the Bon 
Homme Richard, Pallas, Cerf, Vengeance, and Alliance. All ex- 
cept the last were French ships. The Serapis, with her consort, 
the Countess of Scarborough, was convoying a fleet of merchant- 
men. During this desperate duel, the Pallas had fought the Scar- 
borough, taking her just after the Serapis surrendered. But the 
other vessels offered no help. So far from that, the Alliance, Cap- 
tain Landis, repeatedly fired into the Richard, with the hope of 
compelling Jones to capitulate, that Landis might have the credit 
of retaking the Richard and capturing the Serapis. 




THE DECATUR MONUMENT. 



CHAPTER VII. 



SIXTH YEA(k OF THE (REVOLUTION— 1780. 




,HE Hardships of the camp at Val- 
ley Forge are proverbial ; but 
the winter of 1779-80, in the huts 
at Morristown, witnessed, if pos- 
sible, greater misery. The cold 
set in early this year, and the 
winter was the severest of the 
eighteenth century. The want 
of bread and meat and the lack 
of clothing form the burden of 
the same old, sad story of priva- 
tion and suffering. Continental 
money had been issued by Con- 
gress to the amount of two hundred million dollars. It was now 
so much depreciated that forty dollars in bills were worth only 
one dollar in specie. A pair of boots cost six hundred dollars in 
these paper promises. A soldier's pay for a month would hardly 
buy him a dinner. To make the matter worse, the British had 
flooded the country with counterfeits, which could not be told 
from the genuine. Many persons entirely refused to take Con- 
tinental money. The sufferings of the soldiers, and the difficulty 
of procuring supplies, may be readily imagined. 

Washington, though with great reluctance, was forced to 
make requisitions upon the surrounding country. To the honor 
of the loyal people of Jersey be it remembered that, in this hour 
of gloom, they bore these exactions with patriotic submission. 
More than that, many of the farmers voluntarily sent in provi- 
sions, shoes, coats, and blankets ; while the women met together 
to knit stockings and to sew for the needy troops. One Anna 
Kitchel, wife of a Whippany farmer, was foremost in good deeds. 



284 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [March 3l-April 14. 

" Her potato bin, meal bag, and granary had always some comfort 
for the patriot soldiers. When unable to billet them in her house, 
a huge kettle, filled with meat and vegetables, constantly hung 
over the fire, that no one might go away hungry." 

Such patriotism, however, was not general throughout the 
country. Discouraged by the length of the war, the apathy of 
which we have already spoken became even deeper than before. 
In this extremity, Washington declared that he had " almost 
ceased to hope," and that friends and foes seemed to be combin- 
ing to pull down the fabric raised at so much expense of time, 
blood, and treasure. The best men no longer went to Congress, 
and in that body only fifteen or twenty persons transacted the 
most important business. Its councils were consequently scarcely 
heeded, and its authority was openly disregarded. The national 
power, divided among thirteen States, was fast sinking to its 
lowest ebb — this, too, at a time when the final conquest of the 
United States by Great Britain was scarcely expected, even by 
the most sanguine friends of the crown. 

On the day after Christmas, Clinton set sail from New York 
for an attack upon Charleston. After a tempestuous voyage, he 
reached North Edisto Sound, February 10th. Governor Rut- 
ledge and General Lincoln were indefatigable in their efforts to 
fortify the city. Clinton advanced with great caution, and it was 
not till the 31st of March that he sat down, with ten thousand 
men, before the American works on Charleston Neck. The 10th 
of April, he completed his first parallel, and summoned the city 
to surrender. Meanwhile, the English fleet had safely crossed the 
bar, passed Fort Moultrie, and was anchored in the harbor. 
Lincoln, however, influenced by the entreaties of the inhabitants, 
decided to remain with his army, although the capture of the city 
was a foregone conclusion. He therefore replied to Clinton that 
both duty and inclination moved him to defend his post to the 
last extremity. It was a useless attempt. Fort Moultrie surren- 
dered without a shot. The English pushed their works vigor- 
ously. 

As yet, Lincoln had kept up his communication with the coun- 
try across the Cooper River. But on the night of April 14th, 
Tarleton fell upon General Huger, who was encamped, with fif- 
teen hundred cavalry, at Monk's Corner, and put him to flight. 
The patriots, after this discomfiture, retired north of the Santee. 
Lieutenant-Colonel White, who took command, afterward re- 



"Jyso 2 '] SURRENDER OF CHARLESTON. 285 

crossed that river, in order to attack a British foraging party. 
Ere he could get back, Tarleton was upon him with his terrible 
dragoons, and, at the ford of the Santee, repeated the catastrophe 
of Monk's Corner. 

Charleston was now entirely surrounded. All hope of aid or 
retreat was cut off, and, May 12th, the city, with its garrison, was 
surrendered. By counting soldiers, citizens, old and infirm, 
tories and whigs alike, Clinton made out five thousand paroled 
prisoners. A carnival of plunder ensued. Slaves were seized ; 
even those who came voluntarily into the English lines being sent 
to the West Indies. A major-general's share of the booty, we 
are told, was five thousand guineas. 

Expeditions were rapidly sent out to overrun the entire coun- 
try ; one up the Savannah to Augusta, another up the Santee 
toward Ninety-Six, and a third toward Camden. The advance 
of the last under Tarleton, May 29th, at Waxhaw Creek, over- 
took a regiment of Virginians under Colonel Buford, who was 
retreating into North Carolina, after the fall of Charleston. The 
Americans offered to surrender ; but Tarleton rejected the terms, 
and, while the patriots were still hesitating, fell upon them with 
the sword. No quarter was given. One hundred and thirteen 
were killed, and one hundred and fifty so brutally maimed that 
they could not be moved. " This bloody day only wanted," says 
Lee, in his Memoirs, " the war-dance and the roasting-fire, to have 
placed it first in the records of torture and death." Henceforth 
" Tarleton's quarter " was proverbial. 

The inhabitants now flocked in from all parts to meet the 
royal army and resume their ancient allegiance. On every side 
were heard cries of submission and loyalty. Clinton wrote 
home that " South Carolina was English again." Thinking that 
he could deal with the State as a royal province, by his famous 
proclamation of June 3d, he ordered that all, even the paroled 
prisoners, should be henceforth considered as liege subjects of 
Great Britain. The entire male population was to be enrolled in 
the militia ; the men over forty being liable to be called upon 
only in case of invasion, while those under that age were to serve 
six months each year. 

A Carolinian taken in arms against the king, was in this way 
made liable to be tried as a deserter and executed. Relying upon 
the promises of the British commander, many had fondly hoped 
to be allowed to remain at home in peace during the remainder 



286 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [1780. 

of the war. They were now told that they must fight s and the 
only question was whether it should be for, or against, their native 
country. By this ill-timed rigor the Southern States, which 
appeared reunited to the crown, were henceforth convulsed with 
civil war. Brutal tories, having received commissions to raise 
troops, roamed the country, insulting, plundering, and even mur- 
dering those who refused to join their ranks. Patriots were out- 
lawed, and their property was confiscated. Delicate women, who 
had been accustomed to every comfort, were despoiled of raiment 
and home, and were glad to find refuge in some hovel too mean 
to excite the attention of the enemy. No one could be neutral. 
He who was not in arms for the king, was liable to be assassinated 
in his own home, even in the presence of his wife and little chil- 
dren. A merchant could not collect a debt, except on taking an 
oath of loyalty. One of Tarleton's quartermasters cut to pieces 
Samuel Wyly, in his own house near Camden, merely because he 
had been a volunteer at the siege of Charleston. One hundred 
and sixty of the inhabitants of Camden were sent to prison, and 
twenty were loaded with chains, on their refusal to take up arms 
against their countrymen. The Continentals captured at Charles- 
ton were sent to prison-ships, where, in thirteen months, one-third 
of them died of disease. Several hundred young men were taken 
to Jamaica, and forced to serve in a British regiment. Gadsden, 
Rutledge, and other devoted patriots were sent to St. Augustine. 

Reports of these and multitudes of similar outrages, happening 
month after month for over two long years of British occupation, 
stirred the most sluggish hearts. Patriots, exiled from home, 
took up arms, blacksmiths forging their rude weapons, and 
women, who gloried in the title of " rebels," casting bullets for 
them out of the pewter utensils they sacrificed from their pantry- 
shelves. The war at the South henceforth assumed a character 
unlike that which it possessed in the North at any point ; except, 
perhaps, in the sections exposed to Indian forays, or the so-called 
neutral ground along the Hudson, between the English and 
American lines. 

The Carolinas, wild and extensive, cut up by streams, full of 
swamps and tangled woods, and having a mountainous border on 
the west, were exactly fitted for a bush-warfare, and became the 
scene of the most romantic adventures and hair-breadth escapes. 
The inhabitants were nearly equally divided in sentiment, and 
tories and whigs were bent on each other's destruction. Both 



17S0.] PARTISAN WARFARE IN THE CAROLINAS. 28; 

sides organized partisan corps, which rendezvoused in swamps, 
and sallied out, as occasion offered, to strike a sudden blow, and 
then escaped with their plunder through by-paths known only to 
themselves. The country was harried by the continual passage 
of these predatory bands. The rancor of the royalists provoked 
retaliation ; rude justice was dealt on occasions, and the bitterest 
hatred was engendered. Daring leaders arose whose names 
carried terror to their foes and gave strength to the cause they 
upheld. On the British side were Tarleton with his merciless 
dragoons, and Ferguson with his riflemen ; on the American, 
were Sumter, the " Carolian Game-cock," whom Lord Cornwallis 
characterized as his " greatest plague " ; Marion, the " Bayard 
of the South"; and the ever-vigilant Pickens. 

Dark and bloody deeds, lit up here and there with a gleam of 
kindness and faith, characterize this page of our history. Though 
generally lightly touched upon, they greatly influenced the issue 
of the contest. Every heart has been aroused in reading Bryant's 
Song of Marion's Men," those patriots " few, but true and tried," 
under a " leader frank and bold." The very breath of the forest 
is caught in the stirring lines : 

"Woe to the English soldiery that little dread us near ! 
On them shall light at midnight a strange and sudden fear ; 
When, waking to their tents on fire, they grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us are beat to earth again ; 
And they who fly in terror deem a mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands upon the hollow wind. 



" Well knows the fair and friendly moon the band that Marion leads — 
The glitter of their rifles, the scampering of their steeds. 
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb across the moonlit plain ; 
'Tis life to feel the night-wind that lifts his tossing mane. 
A moment in the British camp — a moment, and away 
Back to the pathless forest before the peep of day." 

But there is another virtue beside courage — that of endurance. 
Concerning Marion, it has been said that " his simplicity of con- 
duct, preserved under all circumstances, was above praise ; the 
cheerfulness with which he endured privations, surpassed en- 
comium." At one time, a British officer was sent to negotiate 
some business with him. When it was concluded, Marion po- 
litely invited him to remain to dinner — an invitation which the 



288 



SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



[1780. 



officer, ah eady charmed with Marion's dignified simplicity, gladly 

accepted. The repast consisted entirely of roasted potatoes, 

served upon pieces of bark, and was offered without apology, but 

with the simple mention of the old 

adage that "Hunger is the best . ..(7, ^ MN 

sauce." The British officer was A ^'A 

amazed 



The British officer was 
at such a meagre diet. 



id? 



" Surely, general," he said, " this 
cannot be your ordinary fare." 
" It is indeed," was the quiet 




sffpr 



mmm^ 



A RENDEZVOUS OF MARION AND HIS MEN. 



reply ; " but on this occasion, having the honor of your company, 
we are happy to have more than our usual allowance." The 
officer was so affected by this unselfish patriotism, especially as 
he afterward learned that Marion served without pay, that, imme- 
diately upon his return, he resigned his commission, declaring 
that it was folly to fight against men who showed such devotion 
to their cause. 

Colonel Horry of Carolina, who belonged to Marion's brigade, 
was another dauntless patriot. He had an impediment in his 
speech, which greatly embarrassed him. A ludicrous story is 



1780.] PARTISAN WARFARE IN THE CAROLINAS. 289 

told of him when, after having waited some time in ambuscade to 
attack a certain British detachment, he had them at length in his 
power. The critical moment had come, and he jumped to his 
feet to give the order to fire. " Fi-fi-fi-fi-fi — " his tongue would 
go no further. Irritated almost to madness, he shouted, " Shoot, 
d — n you — shoot ! shoot ! You know very well what I would say 
— shoot and be d — d to you ! " His own courage reacted upon 
and inspired all who came in contact with him. At Quimby, 
Colonel Baxter, himself a brave soldier, called out, " Colonel, I 
am wounded! " " Never mind, Baxter, stand to your post ! " was 
the reply. " But I can't stand, colonel ; I am wounded a second 
time ! " " Then lie down, Baxter, but don't quit your post." 
" Colonel," cried the same voice, " they have shot me again, and 
if I stay here any longer, they Avill shoot me to pieces." " Be it 
so, Baxter, but stir not! " was the calm response. Baxter obeyed 
the order, and was actually wounded a fourth time before the 
engagement was over. 

One beautiful spring morning, a splendidly-dressed officer, 
accompanied by two aids and followed by a score of troopers as a 
body-guard, dashed up the avenue to a fine old mansion, on the 
piazza of which sat two ladies and a little child. Politely bowing, 
the officer said, " Have I the pleasure of speaking to the mistress 
of this house ? " Being answered in the affirmative, and learning 
that her husband was absent, Tarleton, for it was he, next in- 
quired, " Is he a rebel ? " " No, sir," was the quick reply ; " he is 
in the army of his country, and fighting against our invaders; 
therefore, not a rebel." " I fear, madame, that we differ," Tarle- 
ton rejoined ; " a friend to his country will be a friend to the king, 
our master." " Slaves only acknowledge a master in this coun- 
try," retorted the lady, with spirit. An order was at once given 
to quarter the troops on the plantation, and then, again bowing, 
Tarleton said, " Madame, the service of his majesty requires the 
temporary occupation of your property, and, if it will not be too 
great an inconvenience, I shall take up my quarters in your 
house." His tone was decisive. The lady simply responded, 
" My family consists of only myself, my sister, my child, and a 
few negroes. We are your prisoners." A thousand soldiers — the 
choicest of English cavalry — were soon encamped upon the 
grounds. Lieutenant Slocumb, the owner of the plantation, was 
at that moment, with twelve or fifteen recruits, reconnoitering 
Cornwallis's encampment, little dreaming that his own beautiful 
l 9 



29O SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [1780. 

home was invaded. Mrs. Slocumb prepared an ample dinner for 
her uninvited guests. They especially enjoyed her excellent 
peach-brandy. Learning that it was the product of the plantation 
orchard, an Irish captain said, " Colonel, when we conquer this 
country, is it not to be divided amongst us ? " " Undoubtedly 
the officers will receive large possessions of the subjugated prov- 
inces," was the reply. " Allow me to observe," interposed Mrs. 
Slocumb, " that the only land any British officer will ever hold in 
this country will measure but six feet by two." " Excuse me, 
madame," replied Tarleton ; " for your sake I regret to say it, 
but this beautiful plantation will probably be a ducal seat for 
some of us." The lady's eyes flashed. " Do not trouble yourself 
about me," she retorted ; " my husband is able to make this 
anything but a quiet seat for a duke or even a king." At this 
moment, a rapid volley of firearms resounded from the wood near 
at hand. 

Mrs. Slocumb, who had been in an agony of anxiety lest the 
lieutenant should return, and, unawares, fall into the enemy's 
hands, had, immediately on their arrival, despatched an old negro 
with a bag of corn to a mill on the road her husband must travel, 
charging him to tell his master of the danger. But " Big 
George," with the indolence and curiosity incident to his race, 
had not yet left the hedge-row, behind which he was admiring the 
British red-coats, shining helmets, and dashing plumes. By 
adroit remarks, Mrs. Slocumb had also contrived to impress 
Tarleton with the idea that there was a large number of Amer- 
ican troops in the vicinity. " You would not, of course, be sur- 
prised at a call from Lee," she observed, " or from your old friend 
Colonel Washington, who shook your hand rather rudely, it is 
said, when you last met," pointing, as she spoke, to a scar left by 
Washington's sabre. At the sound of the firing, all rushed to the 
door, and Tarleton, mounting his horse, put himself at the head of 
his regiment. Just then the cause of the disturbance was made 
clear. Lieutenant Slocumb, coming upon the scouts Tarleton had 
sent out, had set upon them with his little band, and was chasing 
them up the avenue to his own house, so intent on his purpose that 
he saw nothing else. At this moment, Big George came to his 
senses, and, rushing before his master, shouted, " Hold on, massa ! 
de debbil here ! Look you." Slocumb was already surrounded, 
but with wonderful coolness dashed through the thinnest quarter, 
scaled the fences, and, leaping a canal amid a shower of balls, 



1780.] HEROISM OF NANCY HART. 291 

reached in safety the shelter of the wood he had just left. The 
men started to pursue, but Tarleton, believing a large force to be 
hidden there, sounded the trumpet for recall, and returned with 
his officers to the peach-brandy and the coffee. Slocumb lived to 
do good service thereafter. 

Nancy Hart of Georgia was one of the most remarkable char- 
acters of these stirring times. An Amazon in stature, her courage, 
patriotism, wit and temper were in proportion to her altitude. 
One evening she was at home in her log-house, with her children 
sitting around the fire, over which a large pot of soap was boiling. 
As Nancy vigorously stirred the soap, she dispensed to her family 
the latest news of the war, seasoned with her own spirited sen- 
timents. Suddenly one of the children espied a face between 
the crevices of the huge log chimney, and silently conveyed the 
intimation to his mother. As her violent whiggism was known 
and hated, she readily divined that a tory spy was at hand. Rat- 
tling away with renewed zeal, giving sarcastic pictures of the dis- 
comfiture of the tories, as she professed to have just received 
special intelligence, and meantime stirring her soap with increas- 
ing fury, she waited till the proper moment arrived, when, quick as 
lightning, she dashed a ladleful of the boiling liquid plump through 
the crevice, into the very face of the eavesdropper. Blinded by 
pain and sudden surprise, he screamed and roared vociferously, 
while the indomitable Nancy amused herself at his expense, and, 
with jibes and taunts, bound him fast as her prisoner. 

When the partisan warfare had become so hot, and the tories 
so strong, that whigs were forced to hide or swing, and Nancy's 
husband had taken to the canebrake with the rest, she still 
stood at her post, her spirits rising with the tempest. The 
tories at length gave her a call, and, in true soldier manner, 
ordered a repast. " Nancy soon had the necessary materials 
for a good feast spread before them. The smoking venison, the 
hasty hoe-cake, and the fresh honeycomb were sufficient to have 
provoked the appetite of a gorged epicure. They simultaneously 
stacked their arms and seated themselves, when, with a cat-like 
spring, the dauntless Nancy seized one of the guns, cocked it, and, 
with a blazing oath, declared she would blow out the brains of the 
first mortal that offered to rise, or take a mouthful. They all knew 
her character too well to imagine that she would say one thing 
and do another. ' Go,' said she to her son, ' and tell the whigs 
that I have taken six base tories.' They sat still, each expecting 



292 



SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



U 780. 



to be offered -up, with doggedly mean countenance, bearing the 
marks of disappointed revenge, shame, and unappeased hunger. 
Whether the incongruity between Nancy's eyes — when in rage 
they had a slight obliquity — caused each to imagine himself her 
immediate object, or whether her commanding attitude and her 
stern and ferocious fixture of countenance overawed them, or the 
powerful idea of their non-soldierlike conduct or the certainty of 
death unnerved them, it is not easy to determine. They were soon 




NANCY HART AND THE BRITISH SOLDIERS. 



relieved from her glare, but only to be dealt with according to 
the rules of the times." Another account of this transaction states 
that Nancy shot two of the tories, and then saying " shooting was 
too good for them," ordered the others to be taken to a tree near 
by and hanged. Nancy Hart rendered several signal services to 
the patriots. When Augusta was in the hands of the British, and 
great anxiety was felt concerning their intentions, she assumed 
male attire, and, feigning insanity, went boldly into the British 
camp, where she obtained much valuable information to bring 
back to the American commander at Wilkes. At another time, 
on a similar mission, she walked to the Savannah River ; made a 



A | U 78o!'] ATTACK OF HANGING ROCK. 293 

raft of logs tied together with grape vines, crossed, accomplished 
her end, and returned with important intelligence. On several 
occasions she made single prisoners. Once, having met a tory, 
she engaged him in conversation, and, when off his guard, seized 
his gun, and compelled him to march before her into the Amer- 
ican camp. A county in Georgia now bears her family name, and 
thus perpetuates her memory. 

After the fall of Charleston there was no regular patriot army 
in the field, but the partisan bands kept up the contest. July 12th, 
while one Captain Huck, who was in command of a British 
patrol at Cross Roads, was surrounded by women who were 
vainly begging the ruffian to spare their homes, Sumter's troop 
dashed suddenly into the street from both ends, slew the captain 
and killed or captured the entire party. His numbers increasing, 
July 30th, this bold leader ventured to attack the British sta- 
tion at Rocky Mount ; but having no artillery to batter down the 
log block-house, was compelled to give up the attempt. Seven 
days after, he assaulted the post at Hanging Rock. His soldiers 
had, at the beginning, only two rounds of ammunition, and they 
would not have had even this but for the heroism of two women. 
It had been stored in a house where a Mrs. Thomas resided with 
her daughter and son-in-law. The enemy having attacked the 
dwelling, the three barricaded the doors, and, the women loading 
the guns, the man discharged them so rapidly, and with such 
effect, that the British, supposing a force to be posted there, 
withdrew. At Hanging Rock, as in many other engagements, the 
patriots soon supplied themselves from the tories whom they put 
to flight. At first Sumter carried all before him, but his men be- 
coming disorganized by the liquor they found in camp, he drew 
off with his prisoners and booty when victory seemed just within 
his grasp. 

A young boy not yet fourteen years of age took part in this 
conflict. His name was Andrew Jackson, the same who afterward 
became the hero of many battles, and the seventh President of 
the United States. 

In the spring, Washington sent from his little army a de- 
tachment which he could ill spare for the help of the South. 
The gallant De Kalb was ordered thither with two thousand 
Maryland and Delaware Continentals. Washington desired that 
Greene should be appointed to the Southern army, in place of 
Lincoln ; but Congress unanimously designated Gates for this ser- 



294 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ Julv 2 , 5 7 io Ug ' 6 ' 

vice, making him, moreover, as once before, independent of the 
commander-in-chief, and responsible only to that body. 

As Gates was on the way to his new field, he met General 
Charles Lee, who cautioned him lest his " Northern laurels should 
turn to Southern willows." But, full of elation, he hastened south- 
ward, vaporing much of" Burgoyning Cornwallis," and expecting 
to end the war with another Saratoga. July 25th, he joined the 
army at Deep River. De Kalb had intended to march through 
Salisbury and Charlotte, a fertile region abounding in supplies. 
Instead, Gates took the direct route for Camden, through a wilder- 
ness of sand-hills and pine barrens. His men, eating green corn 
and unripe fruit, became the prey of disease. Emerging from this 
inhospitable country, he arrived at Clermont, August 13th. He 
had only about three thousand men, who had never been paraded 
together, and many of whom were raw militia. Full of conceit, 
however, and supposing that the enemy would, of course, flee 
before his terrible name, he advanced to meet Lord Cornwallis, 
who was then in command of the British, Clinton having returned 
to New York. 

Singularly, both generals had appointed the same time to 
make a night attack. While marching for this purpose, about 
half-past one on the morning of the 16th, the advance-guards of 
the two armies unexpectedly encountered each other in the 
woods near Camden. After some sharp skirmishing, the main 
bodies waited for day. At dawn, Cornwallis ordered a charge. 
The Virginia militia under Stevens, not knowing how to use their 
bayonets, which they had received only the day before, fled at the 
first fire. Two-thirds of the army disappeared without returning 
a shot. Amid the general rout, a regiment of North Carolinians 
under Dixon refused to flee, and stood firm with the Maryland 
and Delaware men under De Kalb. At last, that Polish veteran 
fell, pierced with eleven wounds. His brave comrades for a time 
fought desperately over his body, but were overwhelmed by 
numbers. Gates, with no thought of those who were still bravely 
contending on the field against such terrible odds, fled with the 
militia, or, as he said, " retired." Late that night, with a solitary 
companion, General Caswell of North Carolina, he reached Char- 
lotte. The next morning, he kept on to Hillsborough, making, 
says Bancroft, two hundred miles in three days and a half. The 
"grand army," as it had been pompously styled, was irrecover- 
ably scattered. « 



Aug ' i780? Ct ' 7 '] BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN. 205 

Previous to the battle, Sumter, having again emerged from his 
retreat in the swamp, had gone below Camden with a strong 
detachment from Gates's army to capture a convoy of stores 
designed for the British. In the midst of his success, learning of 
the disaster at Camden, and seeing his own perilous position in 
the presence of a victorious enemy, he retreated up the river. 
But while he was taking a noon-day halt at Fishing Creek, his 
men bathing and cooking, and he lying asleep in the shade of a 
wagon, Tarleton burst into the camp, recovered the plunder and 
prisoners, and scattered or captured his entire force. Two days 
after, Sumter rode into Charlotte without hat or saddle. 

But other partisans were more successful. On the very day 
of Sumter's defeat at Fishing Creek, Colonel Williams, with the 
patriots of Ninety-Six, stormed the British post at Musgrove's 
Mill, garrisoned by five hundred troops ; and the day Sumter 
rode into Charlotte, Marion, near Nelson's Ferry on the Santee, 
sprang out of his covert upon a convoy of prisoners from Camden 
fight, captured a part of the guard, and rescued one hundred and 
fifty Continental soldiers from a fate worse than death. 

Early in September, Cornwallis marched into North Carolina 
via Charlotte and Salisbury, while Ferguson was ordered to move 
along the base of the mountains, on his way recruiting the loyal- 
ists from the uplands of South Carolina. Presently the attention 
of the latter was drawn toward Augusta. Clark, with one hun- 
dred riflemen, had there captured the rich presents designed to 
rouse the Cherokees to take part in this struggle. Reinforce- 
ments from Ninety-Six, however, reaching the British, Clark 
beat a hasty retreat, some of his men being overtaken. By the 
orders of Brown, the commander at Augusta, thirteen of these 
were hung, and as many given up to the Indians to be toma- 
hawked or tortured. 

Ferguson, hoping to cut off Clark's party, now pressed closer 
to the mountains, where he met with an unexpected obstacle. 
The patriots, fleeing before his ruthless advance, had roused the 
free backwoodsmen over the mountains with the story of their 
wrongs. These had gathered, each man with his trusty rifle, a 
bag of bullets, and a store of provisions and powder — the latter 
made from nitre found in the caves, and charcoal burned by their 
wives on their own fireplaces. Under Colonels Shelby and 
Sevier — afterward first governors, respectively, of Kentucky and 
Tennessee — Williams, Cleaveland, McDowell, and Campbell, they 



296 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. tfSso." 

suddenly emerged from the wilderness, bent on Ferguson's de- 
struction. He took the alarm, and hurried eastward toward 
Cornwallis. The trooper-chiefs, selecting nine hundred men with 
the best horses and rifles, pushed ahead, dismounting only once in 
thirty-six hours. 

On the afternoon of October 7th, the enemy was brought at 
bay on King's Mountain. There were over eleven hundred, but 
the backwoodsmen did not wait to count the odds. Forming into 
four columns, they clambered up the steep, craggy cliffs from all 
sides at once. Driven back here and there by the bayonets of the 
regulars, they returned directly, and all the while poured in a 
murderous fire. The contest lasted an hour, when Ferguson fell, 
and his men, despairing, surrendered. Four hundred and fifty-six 
of the British were either killed or severely wounded, and six 
hundred and forty-eight were taken prisoners. The American 
loss was only eighty-eight in all. Ten of the tories, notorious 
assassins and house-burners, were hung by the enraged moun- 
taineers. There were eleven selected, but one of them broke 
loose as they were being led to execution, and, " though he had 
to make his way through a thousand of the best marksmen and 
horsemen in the world, such was the unusual admiration or feel- 
ing on the occasion, not one would lift a hand to stop him." 
Campbell, on learning of this summary vengeance, immediatel5 
put a stop to further executions. 

The hardy sons of the forest, having accomplished their pur- 
pose, quietly returned to their log-cabins and their uneventful 
lives. King's Mountain proved another Lexington or Bunker 
Hill. Tarleton, who was coming to Ferguson's aid, heard of the 
disaster and hastened back to Cornwallis. That general, with no 
longer any thought of conquering North Carolina, but only of 
getting back in safety, immediately set out on his return. Militia 
on every hand beset his rear and flank. Frequently single rifle- 
men would ride up within shot of the British column, take 
careful aim with their unerring pieces, fire, and then, wheeling, 
disappear in the woods. Troops were cut off", and food became 
scarce. For days before the army reached Winnsborough, in 
South Carolina, two and a half ears of corn for each soldier was 
the only ration. 

Marion now came out of his hiding-places along the Pedee and 
the Black Rivers, and, defeating a party of tories who were in 
pursuit of him, threatened the communications with Charleston 



0c i t 780° V "] ACTIVITY OF MARION AND SUMTER. 297 

Cornwallis at once sent Tarleton after him. Delighting in this 
commission, he set off. His line could everywhere be traced by the 
ruin he left behind him. Groups of houseless women and children, 
whose homes — some of them spacious and elegant — had been 
burned by his ruthless orders, clustered about fires in the open air, 
and in the chill November rain. One lady, the widow of a brave 
general officer, who was believed to have knowledge of Marion's 
whereabouts, was actually beaten for not revealing it, and left 
without a change of raiment by the ashes of her dwelling. At the 
approach of the enemy, Marion took to his covert in the swamp. 
Just then, Tarleton was recalled. Sumter had appeared in the 
Northwest, stopping supplies and defeating a detachment under 
Major Wemyss, who had ventured to attack his camp at Fishdam, 
and now menaced Ninety-Six. Tarleton quickly turned to meet 
the " Game-cock." Sumter, being apprised of this, chose a strong 
post at Blackstock Hill, where he repulsed the British attack 
with heavy loss. The patriot chief was, however, severely 
wounded, and his men retired, carrying their commander with 
them. Marion proved a source of constant terror to the British 
army at the South. It is said, indeed, that Cornwallis himself 
had an especial dread of Marion, and, when outside of Charleston, 
never sat down in a strange house, but always remained on the 
piazza or under a tree, that he might constantly watch for this 
always-to-be-expected foe. 

No military movements of great importance took place at the 
North during this year. A few marauding excursions only are 
worthy of mention. In the winter, New York Bay and the adja- 
cent rivers were frozen over, so that the city was open to land 
attack, artillery being able to move anywhere upon the ice. It 
was expected that Washington would take advantage of this op- 
portunity, but the condition of his army forbade. On the night 
of January 14th, General Stirling attempted to surprise a British 
post on Staten Island, but failed, and came back with many of his 
men severely frost-bitten. Eleven days after, Knyphausen, in 
command at New York during the absence of Clinton in South 
Carolina, retorted by two expeditions ; one, which crossed over 
to Newark, captured a company of soldiers stationed there, and 
burned the Academy ; and another, which surprised the picket at 
Elizabethtown, plundered the inhabitants, and set fire to the church 
and town-hall. 

The pastor of the church which was destroyed was Rev. James 



298 



SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



TFeb, 2, 
L 1780. 



Caldwell, known among the whigs as a " rousing gospel preacher," 
and among the tories as a " rebel firebrand." Laying his pistols 
on the desk beside the Bible, he was wont at times strangely to 
mingle patriotism with piety. He was a great favorite in the 
Jerseys. His bell rang the alarm when the enemy approached, 
and under his roof the militia gathered and the wounded were 

nursed. 

February 2d, a detachment set out by night from New York 
in sleighs, to surprise Young's house, near White Plains.. This 

was a stone building gar- 
risoned by the patriots, 
and commanded a road 
by which provisions 
would naturally pass 
along the valley of the 
Neperan to New York. 
The snow was two feet 
deep, and the British 
were finally compelled 
to leave their sleighs 
and trudge along on foot. 
The alarm was given, and 
the Westchester farmers 
quickly gathered ; but 
after a sharp skirmish, 
the post was stormed 
and the house fired. The 
expedition got back to 
King's Bridge after an absence of only twenty-four hours. The 
prisoners were hurried into the jail and the sugar-house, to en- 
dure the horrors of British captivity. Few ever returned home. 
These expeditions illustrate the way in which the neighborhood 
of New York, especially the Neutral Ground, was constantly har- 
ried through the war. 

In the summer the American army was threatened with star- 
vation. Finally, two Connecticut regiments declared their deter- 
mination to either go home or get food at the point of the bayonet. 
It was with the greatest difficulty that Washington could induce 
them to return to duty. In this emergency, Robert Morris sent 
to camp three million rations. Soldiers' relief associations were 
also organized by the women of Philadelphia. Those who had 




THE OLD SUGAR-HOUSE, LIBERTY STREET. 



Ju i n 7 e 80. 8 '] KNYPHAUSEN IN THE JERSEYS. 299 

money gave it ; the poor contributed their work. Twenty-two 
hundred shirts, we are told, were thus manufactured, on each of 
which was inscribed the name of the fair maker. 

Knyphausen, learning of the disaffection of the army, with 
about five thousand men, made a bold push into the Jerseys. 
The advance landed at Elizabethtown before daylight, June 6th- 
As the troops came to a fork in the road, a solitary sentinel firec' 
into the dimly-discerned mass. That chance-shot mortally 
wounded a British general. Soon the booming of heavy guns 
and the flashing of signal-fires spread the alarm over the coun- 
try. The yeomanry, hastily forming, fired upon the enemy from 
behind fences and trees. The British, reaching Connecticut 
Farms, sacked and burned the town. The wife of Reverend 
James Caldwell, the " rebel fire-brand," was deliberately shot 
through the window of the parsonage, while, it is said, kneeling 
by her bedside, holding the hand of her little child and engaged 
in prayer. After the army had passed, the neighbors with diffi- 
culty rescued the body from the ruins of the burning building. 
The tragical fate of this estimable woman raised a desire for ven- 
geance similar to that produced by the death of Miss McCrea, 
three years before. 

Washington had now arrived and taken position across the 
Rahway, and the troops, which the British expected to find 
thoroughly demoralized, were standing in line, ready to resist the 
passage of the river. Knyphausen recoiled from their firm 
aspect. Several days of uncertainty ensued. Clinton having 
returned from the South, and threatening a movement up the 
Hudson River, Washington retired to Rockaway Bridge. It 
was, however, only a feint on the part of the British, and Kny- 
phausen at once advanced upon Springfield. Greene, who was in 
command, gallantly defended the bridges across the Rahway. 
On that day, says Irving, " no one showed more ardor in the fight 
than Caldwell, the chaplain. The image of his murdered wife 
was before his eyes. Finding the men in want of wadding, he 
galloped to the Presbyterian church, and brought thence a quan- 
tity of Watts's psalm and hymn books, which he distributed for 
the purpose among the soldiers. ' Now, boys,' cried he, ' put 
Watts into them ! ' " 

The advance of the enemy was finally checked. Knyphausen, 
not daring to hazard the difficult passes beyond, again aban- 
doned his attempt. Ere his troops left Springfield, they burned 



300 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [1780. 

nearly the entire village. During the retreat, they were inces- 
santly harassed by the militia, while Light-Horse Harry hung 
on their rear. It was the last time the British set foot in New 
Jersey. 

We now turn to a dark page in the history of the War for 
Independence. Benedict Arnold, whose bravery at Quebec, 
Ridgefield, and Saratoga had excited such universal admiration, 
was stationed at Philadelphia while his wound received at the 
last-named battle was healing. Though considered at heart a 
true friend of the country, he was known to have been greatly 
dissatisfied because, in the early part of the war, his name was 
omitted from the list of the first five major-generals appointed by 
Congress. After his gallant action at Ridgefield, he was commis- 
sioned major-general, but was placed below the previous five. 
Saratoga, however, brought him the rank he had claimed, and he 
was supposed to be content. Having married a Miss Shippen, a 
tory lady of great beauty and accomplishments, he launched into 
a style of living far beyond his income. This he endeavored to 
support by engaging in various commercial schemes, by pri- 
vateering speculations, and even by sharing in the dishonest gains 
of sutlers. Haughty and overbearing in his manner and sordid 
in his disposition, he rendered himself exceedingly unpopular, 
and on one occasion he was mobbed in the streets of Philadelphia. 

The council of Philadelphia finally preferred charges of mis- 
conduct against him which were fully substantiated, and in 
January, 1780, he was sentenced to be reprimanded by the com- 
mander-in-chief. Washington performed the disagreeable duty 
with exceeding leniency, but Arnold made this instance of what 
he called his country's ingratitude a pretext for treason. It is 
now known that for nearly a year previously he had been in com- 
munication with the enemy. The way to this is supposed to have 
been paved by the fact that Miss Shippen, at her father's house, 
had become well acquainted with Major Andre, General Clin- 
ton's aide-de-camp, both having been prominent characters in 
the famous mischianza pageant at Philadelphia. In the corres- 
pondence, Arnold used the pseudonym of " Gustavus," and 
Major Andre that of " John Anderson." 

Bent upon gratifying at once his revenge and his love of 
money, Arnold determined to betray into the hands of the enemy 
the fortress of West Point, then the most important position in 
the country, and the main depot of supplies. He accordingly 



Se l78o!" 3 '] THE TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. 301 

secured from Washington the command of this post, on the plea 
that his wound would not permit his undertaking active service. 
The plot being ripe, Arnold requested an interview with a " person 
fully authorized " to arrange the details. Major Andre accord- 
ingly ascended the Hudson, and went on board the British sloop- 
of-war Vulture, then lying at anchor in the river. Just before 
dawn on the morning of September 22d, he landed at the foot 
of Clove Mountain, where Arnold was waiting in the bushes 
to receive him. The two repaired to the house of one Smith, 
within the American lines, where they remained until late in the 
day. 

The plan agreed upon was for Clinton to send a strong force 
to attack the works at West Point, while Arnold was to scatter 
the garrison, so that no effective defence would be possible. 
While their conference progressed, fire had been opened on the 
Vulture from a small battery on Teller's Point, and she had 
dropped down the river. Andre was therefore compelled to 
return to New York by land. Furnished with a pass from 
Arnold and a citizen's dress, he accordingly set out under the 
guidance of Smith. . Everything passed off well. A little distance 
north of Pine's Bridge, over the Croton, Smith returned, assuring 
Andre that he would now meet only parties of British marauders, 
" Cow Boys," as they were called. 

Andre, pressing forward, full of satisfaction over the result of 
his hazardous undertaking, had nearly reached Tarrytown, when 
he was suddenly stopped by a small scouting party of three men, 
named Paulding, Van Wart, and Williams. Paulding demanded 
which way he was going. Expecting to meet only British so near 
the lines, Andre incautiously replied, " I hope, gentlemen, you 
belong to our party." "Which party?" was asked. "The 
lower party," answered Andre. Paulding giving an affirmative 
response, Andre then said, " I am a British officer out on particu- 
lar business. I hope you will not detain me a moment." The 
secret was now out, and he was at once ordered to dismount. In 
dismay, he showed Arnold's pass. At first this would have satis- 
fied his captors ; now it was too late. Upon searching him, they 
found in his stockings, among other papers in Arnold's handwrit- 
ing, a plan of the fortifications at West Point. " This is a spy," 
exclaimed Paulding. Andre now offered any sum they might de- 
mand to secure his release. The incorruptible patriots refused the 
bribe, and, taking him to North Castle, left him in the hands of 



302 



SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



rSept.26, 



1780. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson. Having done their duty, they 
departed, without asking any reward, or even leaving their 
names. With inconceivable stupidity, Jameson wrote to Arnold, 
informing him of the arrest. 

Arnold was at breakfast when he received the note. Calling 
aside his wife, he told her of his peril. Terrified by his words. 










CAPTURE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 

she fainted. Kissing his boy, who lay asleep in the cradle, he 
darted out of the house, mounted a horse, by an unfrequented 
path reached the river, jumped into his boat, and was rowed to 
the Vulture. Here he basely delivered up his oarsmen as prison- 
ers of war. Clinton, on hearing of the fact, at once ordered them 
to be released. 

Washington arrived a few hours after Arnold's escape. 
" Whom can we trust now ? " was his exclamation when he 
received the startling news. Andre" was tried by court-martial, 
and convicted as a spy. His sad fate awakened universal inter- 
est, and every effort was made to secure his release. But the 
inexorable laws of war admitted no pardon. As a last favor, 
Andre besought that he might die as a soldier rather than as a 
criminal. This, too, the custom of both sides forbade. His letter 



°780.'] EXECUTION OF MAJOR ANDRE. 303 

to Washington, in which he touchingly preferred this request, has 
been thus beautifully paraphrased by Willis : 

" It is not the fear of death 

That damps my brow ; 
It is not for another breath 

I ask thee now ; 
I can die with a lip unstirred, 

And a quiet heart — 
Let but this prayer be heard 

Ere I depart. 

" I can give up my mother's look— 

My sister's kiss ; 
I can think of love — yet brook 

A death like this ! 
I can give up the young fam* 

I burned to win ; 
All — but the spotless name 

I glory in. 

"Thine is the power to give, 

Thine to deny, 
Joy for the hour I live, 

Calmness to die. 
By all the brave should cherish, 

By my dying breath, 
I ask that I may perish 

By a soldier's death." 

The sentence was executed at Tappan October 2d. Major Tall- 
madge, who accompanied him, says, " When he came in sight of 
the gibbet, he appeared to be startled, and enquired with some 
emotion whether he was not to be shot. Being informed that the 
mode first appointed for his death could not consistently be 
altered, he exclaimed, ' How hard is my fate ! ' but immediately 
added, ' it will soon be over.' I then shook hands with him under 
the gallows and retired." Having been given an opportunity to 
speak, he simply said, " I pray you to bear witness that I meet 
my fate like a brave man." 

Much sympathy was felt for this unfortunate young officer, 
who was so vastly superior to the traitor who was the cause of his 
ignoble death. Andre was brilliant and accomplished, an artist and 
a scholar. He had written some spicy satirical poems on military 
events. The closing verse of one, entitled " The Cow Chase," 
wherein Lee and Wayne are the ludicrous heroes, runs thus; 



304 SIXTH YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. {.°nao?' 

" And now I've closed my epic strain, 
I tremble as I show it, 
Lest this same warrio-drover Wayne 
Should ever catch the poet." 

It is a singular coincidence that the last canto of this poem was 
published the very day of Andre's arrest, and that General 
Wayne commanded the division of the army at Tappan, when the 
ill-starred satirist proved his mock fears to be sad prophecies. 

Arnold received, as the reward of his treachery, six thousand 
three hundred and fifteen pounds and a major-general's commis- 
sion in the British army. The fame of his gallant deeds was 
forever hidden by the memory of his base deceit, and he was 
henceforth despised alike by Americans and British. 

A curious attempt was made by Washington to get possession 
of Arnold. The agent employed was John Champe, sergeant- 
major in Lee's cavalry. His first step was a pretended deser- 
tion. Lee withheld pursuit as long as possible without exciting 
suspicion, but the vigilant officer of the day discovered Champe's 
absence almost immediately. Obliged to simulate an ardent 
desire to overtake the culprit, Lee, though taxing his wits for 
causes of delay, could not give Champe more than an hour's 
start. The chase was hot, and twice the fleeing deserter was 
nearly in the clutches of his pursuers ; but at last he succeeded in 
reaching the river, and, swimming for his life, was taken on board 
a British galley. He was referred to General Arnold, who was 
forming an American Legion, mostly composed of renegades. 
Arnold made him recruiting-sergeant, which ensured him frequent 
access to his house. A plan was laid with two disguised patriots 
like himself, to whom he had brought letters of introduction, to 
seize and gag Arnold in his garden, where he walked every night 
about twelve o'clock. They were then to convey him to the 
river, as a drunken companion, and row him over to the Jersey 
shore. All was in readiness. The night arrived, and Lee, who 
had been kept informed of affairs, waited with three dragoons, in 
the wood near Hoboken, to convey the traitor to camp. Hour 
after hour passed, and no boat approached. Day broke, and the 
disappointed party went back alone. A few days afterward, a 
letter from one of Champe's associates explained the failure of the 
plot. Only the day before the night fixed for its execution, 
Arnold removed his quarters, and Champe, instead of crossing 
the Hudson with his prize, as he had fondly hoped, was on board 



Oct., I 
1780. J 



CHAMPE S ADVENTURE. 



305 



one of the British transports, from whence he never departed 
till Arnold landed his troops in Virginia. When, at last, he 
effected his escape and rejoined his old regiment, his comrades 
were not a little surprised at the joyous reception given him by 
Lee. The truth soon became known, and the long-reprobated 
deserter assumed his true place in the hearts of his fellow-soldiers 
as a hero and a patriot. Lest, in the vicissitudes of war, he 
might fall into the enemy's hands and die on a gibbet, Washing- 
ton, with distinguished marks of esteem, gave him a discharge 
from the service. 

At the close of the campaign of 1778, Lafayette, having been 
granted leave of absence at the request of Washington, returned 
to France. He was there received with every mark of respect 
and consideration. He was almost immediately called to the 
palace, the queen being anxious to hear about her " Dear Ameri- 
cans." "It is fortunate," said Maurepas, the minister, "that 
Lafayette did not wish to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to 
America." Having gained a promise of assistance for the United 
States, he rejoined Washington, May 11, 1780. He brought the 
commander-in-chief a commission as lieutenant-general of the 
army of France and vice-admiral of its navy. July 10th, a French 
fleet, carrying Rochambeau and six thousand soldiers, arrived at 
Newport. We shall hear of them the next year at Yorktown. 




MONUMENT AT TARRYTOWN. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LAST YEA(R OF THE (REVOLUTION— 1781. 




HE value of the Continental cur- 
rency had now sunk so low that 
it was said that a " wagon-load of 
the scrip would hardly purchase 
a wagon-load of provisions, while 
one going to trade was forced 
to carry his money in a market- 
basket." Destitute of food and 
clothing, and without pay for a 
year, thirteen hundred of the 
Pennsylvania troops, consisting 
principally of Irish immigrants, 
encamped at Morristown, broke 
into open revolt on the night of the New-Year, and left camp 
with the avowed purpose of compelling Congress to redress their 
wrongs. General Wayne confronted them with his loaded pistols, 
but, with their bayonets at his breast, they declared, " We love and 
respect you, but if you fire you are a dead man. We are not 
going to the enemy, as you would soon see if they should appear, 
for we should fight under you as bravely as ever." Clinton sent 
his agents among them offering heavy bounties lor desertion. 
The mutineers indignantly replied, " We are not Arnolds ! " and 
turned them over to Wayne, who, being a great favorite, was 
allowed to follow the march. On being tendered a reward for 
delivering up these spies, they replied, " We ask no pay for 
placing our country above its enemies ; we only demand justice 
in view of our past service and our necessities." 

Reed, then president of Pennsylvania, finally settled the diffi- 
culty by discharging those who professed to have served their 
time, the State making arrangements to pay and clothe the re- 



/ 7 a £j;] REVOLT OF THE CONTINENTAL TROOPS. 307 

mainder. It was afterward found that the men had sworn falsely 
as to their terms of enlistment in order to secure their discharge. 

The New Jersey troops, encouraged by the success of the 
Pennsylvania line, followed the example. Washington imme- 
diately marched some New England regiments from West Point, 
which, being composed of " native Americans and freeholders, 
or sons of freeholders," remained true. The revolt was quickly 
subdued, and two of the mutineers were shot, their own com- 
panions being forced to act as executioners. 

In this emergency, an agent was sent to France in order to 
secure a loan. Yet, as Bancroft well remarks, that country was 
poorer in proportion to its population than the United States. 
All that was lacking here was a powerful government to organize 
the strength of the country. In February, Robert Morris was 
appointed financial agent, and by freely using his private credit 
he succeeded in restoring confidence in the promises of Congress 
to pay its honest debts. At his suggestion, the Bank of North 
America was established, and by careful management he was able 
to redeem its bills with gold whenever presented. 

March 1st of this year was a notable day. Maryland, the last 
of the thirteen States, then ratified the articles of confederation, 
thus consummating the Federal Union. 

The defeat of Gates at Camden was fatal to his ambition. 
Soon after, General Greene was appointed his successor, but 
subject to the orders of the commander-in-chief. Thus, for the 
first time, was the true position of Washington recognized. 
Light-Horse Harry with his legion, three hundred and fifty in 
number, was ordered to the Carolinas. Even this reinforcement 
could ill be spared. Greene, on his arrival, reorganized the army 
and established his camp at Cheraw, on the Pedee. Morgan, of 
whom we have not heard much since the brilliant day at Saratoga, 
was stationed with a thousand men near Broad River. 

An exploit of Lieutenant-Colonel Washington's now greatly 
encouraged the men. Scouring the country with a troop of light- 
horse, he came across a body of loyalists under the tory Colonel 
Rudgley. They were strongly posted in a large log barn, fortified 
by entrenchments and an abattis. Knowing the weak character 
of his opponent, Washington fixed a pine log — shaped and painted 
to look like a field-piece — on the front wheels of a wagon, dis- 
mounted part of his troops to appear like infantry, displayed his 
cavalry, leveled the deadly pine-cannon on the log castle, and 



308 THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [ J ?78i. 7, 

then sent in a flag demanding instant surrender. The affrighted 
colonel begged for quarter, and surrendered his garrison of one 
hundred and twelve men at discretion. Cornwallis, mentioning 
the event in a letter to Tarleton, dryly added, " Rudgley will not 
be made a brigadier." 

In order to cut off Morgan, whose activity threatened his 
flank, Cornwallis ordered Tarleton to attack him in front, while he 
marched northward between the Broad and the Catawba Rivers, 
and severed his communications with Greene. Morgan awaited 
Tarleton's coming at the Cowpens, so called because of an enclo- 
sure at that place used by the neighboring farmers for herding 
their cattle, which in that mild climate roamed wild through the 
fields during the entire year. Before daylight on the morning 
of January 17th, being informed by his spies that Tarleton was 
near, he awakened his men, breakfasted, and then put them quietly 
in post. The British coming on impetuously, the militia who 
were in Morgan's front line yielded after a sharp resistance. The 
Continentals, however, stood firm. Being at length outflanked 
by the superior numbers of the enemy, they fell back to take a 
new position. The English, thinking the day their own, rushed 
forward, when, suddenly, the Americans faced about, poured in a 
terrible volley at only thirty yards distance, and then charged 
with the bayonet. The British were driven pell-mell. Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Washington, with his cavalry, kept up the pursuit for 
twenty miles. In the eagerness of the chase, he got far in advance 
of his regiment, when three officers wheeled upon him. Wash- 
ington owed his life to a sergeant who wounded one, and a little 
waiter-boy who shot a second. Tarleton, the third, is said to 
have been wounded by Washington himself. 

This defeat was a source of great mortification to Tarleton. 
He was occasionally reminded of it in a very disagreeable manner. 
At one time, after having indulged in much braggart talk about 
his own gallantry, he remarked to a whig lady : " I should like to 
see your far-famed hero, Colonel Washington." " Your wish, 
Colonel, might have been fairly gratified," was the prompt reply, 
" had you Ventured to look behind you after the battle at Cow- 
pens." A still more pointed retort was given him by a Mrs. Jones, 
to whom he observed, " I have been told that Colonel Washington 
is so ignorant a fellow that he can hardly write his own name." 
"Ah, Colonel," she replied, " but no one knows better than your- 
self that he can make his mark." 



J J78i 7 '] BATTLE OF COWPENS. 309 

The American loss at Cowpens was only seventy-two, while 
that of the English exceeded eight hundred, besides material of 
war. Cornwallis, hearing of the disaster, put his troops in light 
marching order, burned the baggage, himself setting the example, 
and started in hot haste to punish the victors and recapture the 
prisoners. Morgan, anticipating this, had destroyed what booty 
he could not carry off, and was already in full march for the 
Catawba. So keen, however, was Cornwallis's pursuit that the 
Americans had but just crossed the river when the British van ap- 
peared on the opposite bank. That night it rained heavily, and 
the water rose so high that the impatient Cornwallis was kept 
waiting till the third day. 

Meanwhile Greene joined his faithful lieutenant, and took com- 
mand. The main body of his army was ordered to meet him at 
Guilford Court-House, to which point he now hurried Morgan's 
men. At the Yadkin, just at eve, February 3d, the British advance 
was again on his heels ; but during the night the rain made the 
river unfordable. Heaven smiled on the patriots and they took 
heart. Cornwallis lost two days in going up the river to find a 
crossing. He was soon, however, again in full pursuit. Now 
began a race on parallel roads for the fords of the Dan — seventy 
miles away. Colonel Williams, with the flower of the light troops, 
covered the march. Greene reached the river first, and on the 
15th of February Cornwallis arrived only to find that the Amer- 
ican rear-guard had crossed in the darkness of the night before. 
Every face in the patriot army was lighted with joy when their 
escape was certain. Halting only for one meal per day, sleeping 
but six hours in forty-eight, with only a blanket for four men, 
shoeless and ragged, they had fairly beaten the enemy by out- 
running him. Greene himself, in his all-comprehensive care ol 
the army, had hardly slept four hours in as many days. 

One night during this famous retreat, Greene alighted at the 
Salisbury inn, after a hard day's ride through mud and rain 
The army physician, who had charge of the sick and wounded 
prisoners, met him at the door, and inquired after his well-being. 
" Fatigued, hungry, cold, and penniless," was the heavy-hearted 
reply. The patriotic landlady, Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, overheard 
the words. Lighting a cheerful fire, she spread a warm supper 
before him, and then, quietly producing two bags of specie, her 
hoarded treasure, " Take these," she said ; " you will want them, 
and I can do without them." It is hard to decide which was 



3io 



THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



TFeb. 17-25, 
L 1781. 



the happier, the noble-hearted giver or the relieved receiver. 
Cheered and comforted, Greene renewed his journey with a 
lightened heart. 

The troops lay panting on the opposite sides of the river for a 
day. Cornwallis then fell back to Hillsborough. The waving of 




MRS. STEF.LE AND GENERAL GKEENh 



a handkerchief by a patriot woman, under the cover of the oppo- 
site bank, was the signal which announced his retreat. The 
tables were then quickly turned. Light troops at once recrossed 
the Dan, and Greene himself soon took the field. The British 
general wished to force him to battle, but for seven days Greene 
eluded him, each night changing his camp, though at no time 
over ten miles distant. Lee and Pickens constantly scoured the 
country, covering Greene's movements, obtaining accurate intel- 
ligence, and repressing the royalists. While hunting Tarleton 
through the woods beyond the Haw River, they fell in with a 
body of three hundred tories, who mistook them for the British. 
Lee rode down their line, congratulated them on their appear- 
ance, grasped their colonel by the hand, and was about to explain 



M i78i. 5 '] BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT-HOUSE. 311 

the true state of the case, and demand that they should go to 
their homes or join the patriots, when firing suddenly broke out. 
Lee was forced to charge, and ninety of the royalists were cut 
down, some of them while crying, " We are your friends. God 
save the king." 

March 15th, Greene, being reinforced, determined to give 
Cornwallis battle near Guilford Court-House. He had about 
three thousand six hundred men, nearly twice as many as his 
antagonist, but a large part were raw militia. The Americans 
were drawn up in three lines, several hundred yards apart ; the 
first being composed of North Carolina volunteers, the second of 
Virginia riflemen, and the third of Continentals. The British at 
once advanced to the charge. Half of the militia broke without 
firing a shot. Lee and Washington only, on the flanks, stood 
their ground long after the centre of their line was occupied by 
the enemy. The second line, riflemen used to backwoods fight- 
ing, held their position bravely till driven from it by the bayo- 
net. The Continentals fought stubbornly. At last the right 
seemed weakened, and Greene, not wishing to hazard anything, 
brought up his reserve to cover the retreat. The English were 
too exhausted to pursue. The American loss was four hundred 
and nineteen, and the British five hundred and seventy men. 
That night, with true generosity, the English cared for the 
wounded, friend and foe alike. But they were scattered through 
the woods, and the rain fell in torrents. Fifty sufferers died 
before morning. 

Now was exhibited a strange spectacle. The conqueror fled 
from his own victory. Cornwallis had lost over one-quarter of 
his men, and was forced to retreat with his weakened army. He 
accordingly retired toward Wilmington, whence, unwilling to fall 
back into the Carolinas, he concluded to march into Virginia and 
join the British troops already in that State. Greene decided not 
to follow him, but, leaving Virginia to its fate, to reconquer 
South Carolina. 

Lord Rawdon, in command of the British in that State, was at 
Camden, and thither Greene turned his course. Having en- 
camped on Hobkirk's Hill, only a mile from the enemy, he was 
attacked before he was fairly in position. He quickly made his 
arrangements, but a regiment in the centre giving way unac- 
countably, he was driven from his ground before Colonel Wash- 
ington, who with the cavalry was to fall on the enemy's rear, 



312 THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [^"ne""*' 

could reach the spot. Greene retired as usual, but not before 
inflicting a greater loss than he received. 

Meanwhile, the partisan leaders were busy. Marion and Lee 
laid siege to the fort on Wright's Bluff. Having no cannon, in 
one night they built a tower of logs, from the top of which the 
riflemen picked off the garrison, and so forced a surrender, April 
26th. This capture cut the communications of Camden with 
Charleston, and the former post was thereupon evacuated. They 
then attacked Fort Motte, on the Congaree. The British had 
here fortified and garrisoned the house of Mrs. Motte, an estima- 
ble whig woman. In order to dislodge the enemy, she brought 
to Lee a bow and a quiver of Indian arrows, with which he threw 
fire upon the shingled roof. The occupants could not fight the 
flames under the guns of the sharp-shooters, and were soon 
roasted into a capitulation. A little story is attached to the 
quiver of arrows which did such effective service. Mrs. Brew- 
ton, who was a guest of Mrs. Motte's, had caught it up in the 
moment of their forced departure, knowing it to be a valued 
keepsake in the family. As she was passing through the gate, 
Major McPherson, drawing out a shaft, applied it to his finger, 
saying, "What have you here, Mrs. Brewton?" "For God's 
sake, major, be careful," she replied ; " those arrows are poi- 
soned." It so chanced that, when applied to the purpose after- 
ward decided upon, the first one missed its aim and fell at the 
feet of the major. He took it up, angrily exclaiming, " I thank 
you, Mrs. Brewton." After the surrender, he immediately sought 
her out, and said, " To you, madame, I owe this disgrace ; it 
would have been more charitable to allow me to perish by poison, 
than to thus compel me to surrender my post to the enemy." 

Forts Orangeburg and Granby now yielded. Augusta was 
taken by Lee and Pickens the 5th of June. Greene, in person, 
endeavored to carry Ninety-Six by assault, but was repulsed, 
and Rawdon, receiving reinforcements, came to its rescue. 
Events then took the turn so common in Greene's experience. 
He retired as far as the Ennoree, when, the British giving over 
the pursuit, he followed them back, with Lee's Legion close on 
their heels, captured forty-eight dragoons within a mile of their 
camp, and, June 18th, offered Rawdon battle, which he declined. 
Greene then fell back to the " benign hills of Santee," as Lee 
lovingly calls them, to recruit his army. 

Greene, after leaving Ninety-Six, wished to communicate 



A |7 g 8iM EXECUTION OF COLONEL HAYNE. 313 

with Sumter, but the intervening country was full of tories, and 
no one was willing to undertake the perilous mission. At this 
moment a young German girl, Emily Geiger by name, volun- 
teered for the service. Greene entrusted her with a letter, at the 
same time informing her of its contents. Mounted on a swift 
horse, she had made one day's journey and was near the close of 
the next, when she was hailed by two tories, who arrested her on 
suspicion. While confined in a room, awaiting the woman who 
was sent to search her person, she tore up the letter and swal- 
lowed it piece by piece. Nothing being discovered by the ma- 
tron's careful investigation, she received many apologies for her 
detention, and was allowed to proceed. Thanks to Greene's cau- 
tion in acquainting her with the import of the written message, 
she was able to give Sumter the desired information, and Rawdon 
was soon flying before the Americans toward Orangeburg. 

Disgusted with the ill-success of his plans, that officer, on the 
pretence of poor health, soon returned to England. His last act 
in Charleston did much to embitter the feelings of the inhabitants 
of that city. At the time of its capture by the British, Colonel 
Isaac Hayne was paroled. He was afterward ordered into the 
British ranks, at a time when his wife and several of his children 
lay at the point of death with small-pox. The choice was given 
him to become a loyal subject or to be placed in close confine- 
ment. Agonized by thoughts of his dying family, he signed 'a 
pledge of allegiance to England, with the assurance that he should 
never be required to fight against his countrymen. Being again 
summoned by Lord Rawdon to join the British army, he con- 
sidered the pledge annulled, and raised a partisan band. He 
was captured, and, without being allowed a trial, was condemned 
to die. The citizens of Charleston vainly implored pardon for 
him. He was allowed forty-eight hours in which to take leave of 
his children, at the end of which time he was hanged. This bar- 
barous act left a stain on Rawdon's memory which time has only 
deepened. Retaliation was urgently demanded ; but the other 
British officers did not countenance his inhumanity, and milder 
measures prevailed. 

Colonel Stewart, left in command of the British, took post at 
Eutaw Springs, where Greene attacked him September 8th. 
Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Lee, Williams, Campbell, and Washing- 
ton won new honors on this desperately-fought field. The British 
were finally fairly beaten. In the moment of victory, Campbell 



3*4 



THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



rsept., 
L 1781. 



fell. Informed of the patriots' success, he exclaimed, like Wolfe 
at Quebec, " I die contented." 

On their retreat, however, one party of the enemy took 
refuge in a brick house, and another in a wood of barren oaks. 
Cannon were brought against the former, but the gunners were 
quickly picked off by riflemen ; Colonel Washington, rashly 
charging the latter without waiting for the infantry, was wounded 
and captured, and half his men fell in the useless struggle. 
Stewart during the delay rallied his fugitives, and Greene reluc- 




f m 



Morgan. 



THE PARTISAN LEADERS OF THE SOUTH. 



tantly drew off his men. One-quarter of the American army and 
one-fifth of the British were killed or wounded. Both sides 
claimed the victory. That night, however, the English retired to 
Charleston. 

During the retreat, Manning, a noted soldier of Lee's legion, 
was in hot pursuit of the flying British, when he suddenly found 
himself surrounded by the enemy and not an American within 
forty rods. He did not hesitate, but, seizing an officer by the 
collar, and wresting his sword from him by main force, kept his 
body as a shield while, under a heavy fire, he rapidly backed off 
from the perilous neighborhood. The frightened British officer, 



/ 7 a Si:] ARNOLD'S INVASION OF VIRGINIA. 315 

when thus summarily captured, began immediately to enumerate 
his titles: " I am Sir Henry Barry, deputy adjutant-general, cap- 
tain in Fifty-second regiment," etc., etc. " Enough," interrupted 
his captor, " you are just the man I was looking for." 

While Colonel Washington was lying helpless under his fallen 
horse, a soldier was about to bayonet him, when Major Majora- 
banks rushed forward and saved his life. The gallant officer was 
himself afterward wounded, and died en route to Charleston. A 
marble monument, erected as a tribute to a generous enemy by 
the Ravenels, on whose plantation he was buried, now marks the 
spot. The flag borne by Washington's troop at this battle is still 
preserved, and was carried by the Washington Light Infantry 
of Charleston at the Bunker Hill Centennial celebration, June 
17, 1875. 

Greene had now been in command only nine months, but he 
had recovered all the South except Savannah, Charleston, and 
Wilmington. He had not gained a decided victory ; yet his 
defeats had all the effect of successes, and his very retreats 
strengthened the confidence of his men and weakened that of the 
enemy. In his own words, he was always able " to fight, get 
beaten, and fight again." 

Anxious to distinguish himself and burning with hatred, the 
traitor Arnold early led an expedition into Virginia. January 2d, 
he appeared in Chesapeake Bay. The State had no troops to im- 
pede his advance, with generous self-forgetfulness having sent her 
best soldiers to the help of her Southern sisters. At Guilford 
Court-House, nearly twenty-five hundred of her men had helped 
to stay the tide of British aggression. Arnold having burned 
Richmond without opposition, Lafayette was sent with twelve 
hundred men to check his progress. General Phillips, arriving 
from New York with a heavy reinforcement, took Arnold's place, 
and the work of devastation went on more vigorously than ever. 
Lafayette, with his small force, could do little. His men being 
fearful of the climate, he offered any who wished, a permit to go 
home ; but not one would leave him. A soldier, unable to keep 
up with the march, hired a cart lest he might seem to have de- 
serted. At Baltimore, Lafayette borrowed money to supply his 
men with shoes and hats, and to purchase linen, which the loyal 
women of that city made up into summer garments for them. 
Phillips died, and Cornwallis arriving from the Carolinas, Arnold 
was sent back to New York. 



316 THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [^-; 

In September, Arnold was detached against Connecticut, his 
native State. New London was pillaged and burned, the traitor 
himself, it is said, watching the fire from a church steeple. Fort 
Griswold was carried by assault. Colonel Ledyard, the com- 
mander, after a brave resistance, ordered his men to lay down 
their arms ; but still the slaughter did not cease. " Who com- 
mands here ? " called out Major Bromfield, a New Jersey tory, as 
he entered the works. " I did," said Ledyard, handing him his 
sword, " but you do now." With fiendish malignity, he seized 
the weapon and plunged it into the bosom of the heroic colonel. 
Seventy of the garrison were slain and thirty-five wounded. The 
yeomanry of the country were fast rising, and Arnold retreated to 
his boats to escape their vengeance. 

With this barbarous scene ended his career in this country. 
Execrated by his former friends and loathed by his new com- 
panions, even children learned to lisp his name with a shudder. 
It is said that while on his predatory excursions in Virginia, there 
being at one time a chance of his capture, he asked an officer, 
" How will the rebels treat me, do you think, should I fall into 
their hands?" " Pardon my frankness," was the reply, " but they 
will probably cut off the leg that was wounded in storming our 
lines at Saratoga, and bury it with the honors of war ; having no 
respect for the rest of your body, they will undoubtedly gibbet 
it." He carried to England a letter of introduction from Sir 
Henry Clinton to Lord Germain, but, although he was patronized 
by George III., he received abundant proofs of contempt from 
high-spirited noblemen. At one time, Lord Surrey rose to speak 
in parliament when, his eye resting on Arnold, he drew himself 
proudly up, and, pointing to the traitor, exclaimed, " I will not 
speak while that man is in the house ! " It is also related that, on 
being introduced to Earl Balcarras, the proud old Briton refused 
his hand, saying, as he haughtily turned away, " I know General 
Arnold, and I abominate traitors ! " Many other stories, true or 
false, are current, but all agree in showing how the blighting curse 
of his treason followed him to his death. " He saw," says Lester, 
" the infant republic he had betrayed, emerge from the gloom of 
her long struggle into wealth, power, and splendor ; and left it 
advancing on to empire as he went darkling down to a traitor's 
grave. He died in 1801, somewhere in the wilderness of London. 
Where he was buried, nobody has told." 

Cornwallis reached Petersburg May 20th. Never at rest, 



Ma |78 J |"' y '] CORNWALLIS IN VIRGINIA. 317 

though his army had marched at least fifteen hundred miles from 
their starting-point in South Carolina, within four days after his 
arrival he took the field against Lafayette. Despising the youth 
and inexperience of his adversary, he wrote to England, " The 
boy cannot escape me." The marquis, however, retreated from 
Richmond across the Rapidan, where he was reinforced by 
Wayne with the Pennsylvania troops. Cornwallis gave up the 
chase at Hanover Court-House, and contented himself with send- 
ing out a couple of detachments. 

Tarleton, with his cavalry, attempted the capture of the Vir- 
ginia Legislature at Charlottesville ; but the members received 
news of his coming, and all except seven escaped. Governor 
Jefferson had not been absent from his mansion at Monticello ten 
minutes when the dragoons dismounted at the door. Simcoe, 
who was second only to Tarleton as a dashing partisan leader, 
was directed to seize the stores collected at the Point of Fork. 
By judiciously spreading his men over the neighboring hills, he 
deceived Baron Steuben, who was stationed there with about six 
hundred new levies, into the belief that the whole British army 
was at hand. The baron accordingly decamped hastily, and the 
English, crossing the river, destroyed the stores. 

Cornwallis now placed himself between Lafayette and the 
magazines at Albemarle Old Court-House. But the Marquis, 
during the night, opened what was known as the " Rogues' Road " 
— a wilderness path, by which absconding debtors had been wont 
to escape to the South — and, before morning, had taken a strong 
position, where he could defend the place. Cornwallis then 
turned toward Williamsburg. Here he received orders from 
Clinton to send three thousand men to New York, as there were 
great fears that Washington, by the aid of the French fleet and 
troops at Newport, would attack that city. Setting out July 4th, 
for Portsmouth, the royal army reached the Jamestown ford. 
Ordering only the advance to cross, Cornwallis hid his main camp 
back of the woods and morasses, and, by means of deserters, gave 
the impression that merely the rear-guard remained on the left 
bank. Wayne fell into the snare, traversed a narrow log cause- 
way, and attacked the enemy. The whole British army sprang 
up before him, and he was at once outflanked. " Mad Anthony," 
seeing his peril, sounded the charge, and dashed forward with 
headlong courage. Lafayette came to his rescue. The enemy, 
overawed by the apparent confidence of the Americans, feared a 



318 THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [^fj; 

stratagem, and dared not pursue. The Americans fell back to 
Green Springs, and Cornwallis continued on to Portsmouth un- 
molested. 

Clinton, having received reinforcements from England, coun- 
termanded the order for troops from Virginia, and directed Corn- 
wallis to establish an entrenched camp at some central point which 
would form a nucleus for future operations. The army was ac- 
cordingly transferred to Yorktown and Gloucester, where fortifi- 
cations were rapidly thrown up. 

During this midsummer campaign, Cornwallis had traversed 
the rich fields of Virginia, plundering houses, burning farms and 
fences, devastating crops, seizing horses and slaves, and inflicting 
a total loss of fifteen million dollars. 

The French-American army under Washington and Count de 
Rochambeau was now encamped at Dobb's Ferry. Every effort 
was put forth to prepare for a combined attack upon New York. 
While he had maintained a bold front before Clinton, Washington 
had really, however, been baffled on every hand. At one time 
there were only two thousand men in camp, a number less than 
that of the tories then in the British service. There was danger 
of even this small force being disbanded for lack of provisions. 
All the American fleet had been destroyed except two frigates. 
" Hancock," says Bancroft, " was vain and neglectful of business, 
while the president of Pennsylvania was more ready to recount 
what the State had done than what it meant to do." Morris now 
once more came to the rescue. By giving his own notes for one 
million four hundred thousand dollars, he obtained funds for the 
outfit of the troops for the summer campaign. 

The news of the departure from San Domingo for the Chesa- 
peake of Count de Grasse, with a fleet of twenty-five ships-of- 
the-line and several thousand troops, put a new phase on affairs. 
The very day Cornwallis arrived at Yorktown, Washington re- 
solved to transfer the allied army to Virginia. To the last the 
fiction was kept up of a movement upon New York. Recon- 
noissances were made, boats prepared, and ovens set up on the 
New Jersey shore. On the 19th of August the troops were 
paraded with their faces toward King's Bridge, when they were 
wheeled to the right-about, and began their march southward. 
Soon all the roads leading to King's Ferry were alive with the 
gleam of arms, the tramping of men, and the heavy rumbling of 
wheels. Clinton had captured a letter from Washington inform- 



Aug ' mTl? Ct " 5 '] INVESTMENT OF YORKTOWN. 319 

ing Congress of his plans for taking New York, and so much was 
it relied upon that the British general thought these movements a 
ruse to throw him off his guard. At Philadelphia, Morris could 
strain his credit no more, and actually borrowed of Rochambeau 
twenty thousand dollars in hard money to put the American troops 
in good humor for their long march. While en route, Washing- 
ton rode forward with Rochambeau and Chastellux at the rate of 
sixty miles per day, and so secured time to stop at Mount Vernon 
three days. It was his first visit home in over six years. 

The net was fast weaving about the unsuspecting Cornwallis. 
August 30th, Count de Grasse cast anchor within the capes of the 
Chesapeake. September 5th, the English fleet appearing off the 
coast, the French immediately offered battle, and inflicted such 
a loss that the enemy sailed back to New York. De Barras took 
advantage of this opportunity to slip in with the French transports 
from Newport containing the artillery for the siege. On the 28th, 
the allied army, sixteen thousand strong, drove in the outposts 
and sat down before the entrenchments of Yorktown. That night 
Washington lay in the open air under a mulberry tree, its root 
serving for a pillow. October 5th, trenches were opened within 
six hundred yards of the enemy's line — the French on the left and 
the Americans on the right. 

In the allied camp there were the utmost harmony and good- 
will. The French were universal favorites, and everything was 
cheerfully sacrificed for them — the guests of the nation — while 
their officers, by the wise provision of Louis XVI., were all made 
to act under the orders of Washington. 

The town was bombarded night and day. Governor Nelson 
commanded the battery that opened first upon the British. Corn- 
wallis and his staff were at that time occupying the governor's 
fine stone mansion. The patriot pointed one of his heaviest guns 
directly toward the house, and ordered the gunners to play upon 
it with spirit. The vessels in the harbor were fired with red-hot 
shot. For a time the English replied with great vigor. One shell 
fell near Baron Steuben, who, leaping into a trench to avoid its 
effects, was closely followed by Wayne. The latter stumbling as 
he jumped, fell squarely upon his superior officer. Steuben, whose 
ready wit never deserted him, gave Wayne not a moment for 
apology, but remarked, " My dear sir, I always knew you were 
a brave officer, but I see you are perfect in every point of duty ;' 
you cover your general's retreat in the best manner possible." 



320 



THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 



roct. 14, 

L 1781. 



SIEGE OF 
YORKTOWN 



I 1 ,C ri ' 1 ol-OUCEST£ ft 

K^^< P0,NT 

,4fr XlBSs 




On the 14th, two advanced redoubts were taken by assault — ore 
by the Americans and the other by the French, in generous rivalry. 
The former were led by Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, who volun- 
teered for the honor, and was the first to mount the rampart. The 
men did not wait to remove the abattis, but scrambled through as 
best they could, and, without firing a gun, swept all before them. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens turned the entrenchment, and with 
his own hand captured the commandant. Every man who asked 
it obtained quarter, although the news of the massacre at Fort 
Griswold had just been received. The battalion of Gatinois was 
at the head of the French column. It had been formed from a 
regiment which had won the name of UAuvergne sans tache — 

Auvergne without a stain — and when 
Rochambeau, who had been their old 
leader, assigned them their post, they 
said they would die to a man if their 
former title might be restored to them. 
The French stopped under fire to 
have the sappers remove the obstruc- 
tions. Then they leaped forward, 
and to the cry of " Vive le Roi ! " swept 
the redoubt. Within six minutes the 
task was done. " On that night," says Holmes, " victory twined 
double garlands around the banners of France and America." 

Washington, standing in the grand battery with Generals 
Knox and Lincoln, was an intensely excited spectator of these 
assaults. One of his aides-de-camp, uneasy lest harm might come 
to him, ventured to observe that the situation was very much ex- 
posed. " If you think so," replied he, gravely, " you are at liberty 
to step back." Shortly afterward, says Irving, a musket-ball 
struck the cannon in the embrasure, rolled along it, and fell at 
his feet. General Knox grasped his arm. " My dear general," 
exclaimed he, " we can't spare you yet." " It is a spent ball," 
replied Washington, quietly ; " no harm is done." When all was 
over, and the redoubts were taken, he drew a long breath, and, 
turning to Knox, observed, " The work is done, and well done." 
Then he called to his servant, " William, bring me my horse." 

The same night both redoubts were included within the 
second parallel. Two days after, the English made a sally, but 
were driven back pell-mell. As a last resort, Cornwallis attempted 
to ferry his men across by night to Gloucester, hoping to break 



French 

Battery. •? 

» ' Morass 

$*> ) - Field of 

8u rrender 

French ~, \\ l - K ~^ orn \P 

Artillery «„ /^..-r^i 

Heart Lhinrtpvft - [ >- ' 



Head Quarts 



.J?, Head Quarters 



Oct. 19, 1 
1781. J 



SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS. 



321 



through the lines there, and escape over the country to New York. 
A part of his army had crossed, when a storm scattered his boats 
and put an end to this daring scheme. One hundred heavy can- 
non were now playing upon every part of the works, which were 
already so damaged that hardly a gun could be used in reply. 
An assault was imminent. Nothing was heard from Clinton, who 
had promised aid by the 5th. There was no other resource, and 
on the 19th Cornwallis capitulated. 

The scene of the surrender was imposing. It was arranged 
that General Lincoln should accept the submission of the captive 
general exactly as his own had been received at Charleston 




SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS AT YORKTOWN. 



eighteen months before. The allied forces were drawn up on op- 
posite sides of the road for over a mile, the French on the left and 
the Americans on the right. Washington and Rochambeau, each 
with his staff, stood at the head of his army. The English, about 
seven thousand in number, marched between the lines, with slow 
step, shouldered arms, and cased colors. With deep chagrin and 
sullen look, the officers gave the order to " ground arms " ; the 
men throwing down their guns as if to break them, until General 
Lincoln checked the irregularity. Every eye was turned to 
catch a sight of Cornwallis, but, vexed and annoyed, he feigned 
sickness, and sent his sword by the hand of General O'Hara. 
21 



322 THE LAST YEAR OF THE REVOLUTION. [,%*{; 

" From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, 
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill : 
Who curbs his steed at head of one ? 
Hark ! the low murmur : Washington ! 
Who bends his keen, approving glance 
Where down the gorgeous line of France 
Shine knightly star and plume of snow? 
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau ! 

" The earth which bears this calm array 
Shook with the war-charge yesterday ; 
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, 
Shot down and bladed thick with steel ; 
October's clear and noonday sun 
Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun ; 
And down night's double blackness fell, 
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. 

" Now all is hushed : the gleaming lines 
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines ; 
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, 
The conquered hosts of England go : 
O'Hara's brow belies his dress, 
Gay Tarleton's troop ride bannerless : 
Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, 
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes ! " — Whittier. 

The very day the capitulation was signed, Clinton sailed from 
New York with the promised reinforcement. He reached the 
capes of Virginia on the 24th, when, learning of the disaster, he 
returned crestfallen. 

Tidings of the surrender reached Philadelphia at the dead 
of night. The people were awakened by the watchman's cry, 
" Past two o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken ! " Lights flashed 
through the houses, and soon the streets were thronged with 
crowds eager to learn the glad news. Some were speechless 
with delight ; many wept ; and the old door-keeper of Congress 
died of joy. Congress met at an early hour, and that afternoon 
marched in solemn procession to the Lutheran church to return 
thanks to Almighty God. The day after, Washington ordered 
Divine service to be held at the head of the regiments on account 
of the " particular interposition of Providence on their behalf." 

Notwithstanding the great provocations which had been given 
by Cornwallis and his officers, they received only consideration 
and respect at the hands of their conquerors. But nothing could 
atone to the fallen British general for the mortification of his de- 



1781-1783.] END OF THE WAR. 323 

feat. One day, when he was standing with his hat off in presence 
of Washington, the latter kindly observed : " My lord, you had 
better be covered from the cold." " It matters not what becomes 
of this head now," was the bitter reply. 

Lord North received the news as he would " a cannon-ball in 
his breast." He paced the room, tossing his arms, and crying, 
" O God ! it is all over ! " The hope of subduing America was 
now abandoned by the people of England, and they loudly de- 
manded the removal of the ministers who still counseled war. 
The House of Commons voted that whoever advised the king to 
continue hostilities should be considered a public enemy. Early 
in May, 1782, Sir Guy Carleton arrived in New York with prop- 
ositions for a reconciliation between the two countries. 

The struggle which commenced in Massachusetts had now 
closed in Virginia. With the surrender at Yorktown, the war 
was virtually at an end. The American armies still, however, 
kept the field, and various minor skirmishes occurred. Greene's 
men, without regular food, clothing or pay, held the British 
closely confined in Charleston ; while Wayne guarded the garri- 
son in Augusta with watchful vigilance. In August, 1782, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Laurens was killed at Combahee Ferry while 
resisting the advance of a foraging detachment from Charleston. 
The last blood shed in the Revolution is said to have been that of 
Captain Wilmot, in September, during a skirmish at Stono Ferry. 

Preliminary articles of peace were signed at Versailles, No- 
vember 30, 1782. In order to give England time to adjust her 
difficulties with France, the final treaty was not executed until 
September 3d of the following year. Meanwhile, on April 19th, 
the eighth anniversary of the battle of Lexington, which began 
the war, Washington, at the headquarters of the army, officially 
proclaimed its close. Charleston had been evacuated by the 
British, December 14, 1782, and Savannah, July 11, 1783. The 
English troops were then collected at New York from all points. 
On November 25th— a cold, frosty day— the British army and the 
refugees embarked in boats for Staten and Long Islands, prepara- 
tory to taking ship. The same morning, General Knox, who had 
come down from West Point with some American troops, entered 
the city from the Bowery. At three o'clock in the afternoon, 
they took possession of Fort George, upon the Battery, amid the 
shouts of the crowd and the roar of the guns. 

Soon after, Washington and his staff and Governor Clinton 



324 



END OF THE WAR. 



[1781-1783. 



and suite made a formal entry ; the commander-in-chief raking up 
his headquarters at Fraunces's Tavern — a house still standing on 
the corner of Pearl and Broad streets. Here, December 4th, 
Washington bade farewell to his principal officers. It was a 
tender, touching scene. Passing thence, he set out to offer his 
commission to Congress. When he entered the barge, and, bid- 
ding adieu to the assembled multitude, disappeared from sight, 
the War of the Revolution ceased and a new epoch dawned. 




GEORGE III. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE (DEVELOPMENT OF THE (REVIKBLIC. 




FEDERAL HALL. 



HE first twenty 
years of the ex- 
istence of the 
United States as a nation, or 
rather the period from the time 
of the treaty of peace with Great Bri- 
tain until the end of the eighteenth 
century, was the most important of 
any the country has yet seen. The 
close of the Revolutionary War left the 
States like a citadel overthrown — its 
proportions destroyed, its material scattered, without cohe- 
sion, almost, if not quite, a complete ruin. It was to be shown 
whether or not the eminent men who had been so successful in 



*torr 






328 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1783. 

overturning, would be equally so in building up ; it being a 
question for some time, not whether a structure was to arise 
stronger, fairer, and better than the older one, but whether there 
was to be any rebuilding at all. 

The situation was peculiar, unlike any other that the history 
of the world had shown. Most, if not all, the nations of the earth 
had grown up by degrees from small beginnings. Here was one 
that was to spring into existence, a first-class power almost from 
its birth. The material was ready at hand and far removed from 
the influence or control of the older nations. The event showed 
that, as God had prepared the work, so had He laborers compe- 
tent to perform it. They builded, and builded even stronger than 
they knew. 

On the 23d of December, less than a month after the evacua- 
tion of New York, Washington resigned his commission as com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and returned to his home at Mount 
Vernon. He had given many proofs of his patriotism, but one of 
the greatest was his refusal to receive any compensation for his 
eight years of service at the head of the army. It detracts 
nothing from the quality of the sentiment involved that, being 
rich through his marriage with Mrs. Custis, he could afford this 
gift to his country. He simply asked the reimbursement of his 
expenses, an exact account of which he had kept, drawn up by his 
own hand, and now presented to the government. 

The situation of affairs, although peace had now come, was by 
no means flattering to the future of the States. The Articles of 
Confederation, under which they had been acting during the war, 
were mere shadows unless sustained by a common danger or the 
entire willingness of all concerned. In case of any conflict of 
interest, they were ineffective for adjustment or control. They 
gave Congress authority to declare everything, but to do noth- 
ing. They did not act at all upon the people of the country, 
except through the several States, and it depended entirely upon 
the Legislatures whether the measures adopted by Congress 
should be carried out. Many of them were silently disregarded ; 
many were slowly and reluctantly obeyed ; and some were openly 
and boldly defied. 

In all matters of commerce, either domestic or foreign, Con- 
gress was powerless. Each State made its own regulations, and 
consequently the most opposite rules existed at points within a 
few miles of each other. Local prejudices were aroused and 



1783.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 329 

intensified, and resentments continually excited. Indeed, feeling 
in many instances ran so high that civil war seemed imminent. 
Foreign nations, although acknowledging the independence of 
the States, were not backward in taking advantage of their weak- 
ness and the distracted condition of their legislation, imposing 
upon the trade and navigation of the country such restrictions as 
best suited their own interests. 

But this apathy and opposition were especially felt when 
money was to be raised for general purposes. Congress could 
not itself collect the taxes. It could only ascertain the sum 
needed, and apportion it to the several States for them to levy. 
During the war, there was great delay in responding to these 
requisitions; but after peace was declared, there was an utter 
indifference on the subject. Notwithstanding the most urgent 
appeals from the best men of the country, it seemed impossible to 
procure even enough money to pay the interest on the national 
debt, and the public faith was consequently prostrate. 

In fact, the poverty of the public treasury, together with the 
feebleness and apathy of Congress, threatened the very existence 
of the government even before the army was disbanded. The 
troops were not paid, and the condition of those patriotic men 
who had won the freedom of the country was most lamentable. 
While Washington was yet at his headquarters at Newburg 
(March 10, 1783), an anonymous address was distributed among 
his soldiers. It was plainly but skillfully put, urging them not to 
disband, but to overthrow the civil authorities and seize upon their 
rights. Washington was even asked to assume the title of king 
and grasp the reins of government himself. The calmness and 
honesty of the Father of his Country were never more grandly 
shown than at this moment of peril in thwarting the plans of these 
earnest, but misguided men. A touching incident took place 
just before he commenced the reading of his memorable address 
upon this occasion. He removed his spectacles to wipe them, 
and, turning to those around him, said, " My eyes have grown 
dim in the service of my country, but I have never yet learned to 
doubt her justice." Washington finally secured a grant of five 
years full pay to the officers, instead of half pay for life, and the 
whole matter was happily adjusted. 

Lossing relates an incident of Steuben which illustrates both 
the extreme poverty of the army at this period, and the gener- 
osity of " Marshal Forritz," as his men loved to call him, from 



3& 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. 



[1781 




WASHINGTON S HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURG. 



his foreign pronunciation of the command " Forward ! " " Colonel 
Cochrane was standing in the street, penniless, when Steuben 
tried to comfort him by saying that better times would come. 
' For myself,' said the brave officer, ' I can stand it ; but my wife 
and daughters are in the garret of that wretched tavern, and I 
have nowhere to carry them, nor even money to remove them.' 
The baron's generous heart was touched, and, though poor him- 
self, he hastened to the family of Cochrane, poured the whole 
contents of his purse upon the table, and left as suddenly as he 
had entered. As he was walking toward the wharf, a wounded 
negro soldier came up to him, bitterly lamenting that he had no 
means with which to get to New York. The baron borrowed a 
dollar, and, handing it to him, hailed a sloop and put him on 
board. ' God Almighty bless you, baron ! ' said the negro, as 
his benefactor walked away." 

In the apportionment among the States of the taxes to meet 
the interest or a portion of the principal of the debt — now about 
forty-four million dollars — it was discovered that the basis of their 
quotas had not been justly laid. The standard had been the 
value of the real estate, instead of the relative population of the 
several States. To correct this error, Congress suggested that 
there should be an amendment to the Articles of Confederation. 
During the discussion, there arose a question as to the relative 
efficiency of white and colored men in the production of wealth. 



1785-7.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 33 1 

By what reasoning the decision was at length reached, at this 
point of time it is difficult to determine: but in April, 1783, the 
States were asked to so amend the Articles of Confederation, that, 
in enumerating their population for purposes of taxation, three 
white men should equal five negroes. This was subsequently 
incorporated in the second section of the new Constitution, deli- 
cately alluding to the slaves as " three-fifths of all other persons." 

For two years after the peace, the States dragged along, grow- 
ing poorer and poorer every day ; getting further and further 
from one another in sentiment, feeling, and interest ; clinging to 
their State pride and jealousy with a tenacity that showed that 
the Confederation must soon expire of pure inanity. 

In 1785, the States of Maryland and Virginia appointed com- 
missioners to make some regulations relative to the navigation 
of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac and Roanoke Rivers. 
Finding its powers inadequate, the committee recommended more 
extended proceedings. The resolution embodying their sugges- 
tions was drawn up and presented by James Madison of Virginia, 
whence he has been styled the " Father of the Constitution." 

This recommendation resulted in an invitation by the Legisla- 
ture of Virginia to all the States to appoint commissioners for the 
purpose of establishing a uniform system of commercial relations. 
Delegates from five States accordingly met at Annapolis, Sep- 
tember, 1786, and framed a report advising Congress to call a 
general convention for a more effectual revision of the Articles of 
Confederation. The body thus appointed assembled at Philadel- 
phia, May, 1787, all the States except Rhode Island being repre- 
sented. George Washington was chosen president and William 
Jackson secretary. 

The territory of the United States at this time comprised that 
vast region between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River 
on the east and the west, and between the chain of lakes and the 
St. Lawrence River and the thirty-first parallel of north latitude 
on the north and the south. Northwest of the Ohio River was a 
large territory to which several of the States had a claim, as it 
lay within their original charter limits, which extended from ocean 
to ocean. They had, however, ceded their rights to the United 
States for the common benefit. During the year 1787, Congress 
passed an ordinance which has become famous. It provided for 
the government of the Northwestern Territory, as it was called, 
until certain designated parts should possess sixty thousand inhab- 



332 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. 



[1787. 



itants, when they were to be admitted as States. It also ordered 
that " slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime," was to 
be forever prohibited therein. 

The " Constitutional Convention " contained many remarkable 
men. Among them, were Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman, and 
C liver Ellsworth, of Connecticut ; Gunning Bedford and George 
Read, of Delaware; William Few and Abraham Baldwin, of 
Georgia ; Daniel Carroll, James McHenry, and Luther Martin, of 




Maryland ; Caleb Strong, Elbridge Gerry, and Rufus King, of 
Massachusetts ; John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman, of New 
Hampshire ; Jonathan Dayton, William Livingston, and William 
Patterson, of New Jersey ; John Lansing, Robert Yates, and Alex- 
ander Hamilton, of New York ; Robert Morris, Gouverneur Mor- 
ris, and Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania ; John Rutledge, Pierce 
Butler, Charles Pinckney, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of 
South Carolina ; Edmund Randolph, George Mason, James Madi- 
son, and George Washington, of Virginia. 

Oliver Ellsworth, while in the senate, was called the " firmest 
pillar of Washington's administration," and was subsequently ap- 
pointed Chief-Justice of the United States. From Elbridge Gerry 
came the term " gerry-mandering," or the so arranging of districts 
that one or the other political party should gain the majority. 



17S7-90.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 333 

Rufus King was three times a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. 
Robert Morris was the patriot financier who rendered such 
valuable service during the Revolution. But though " heaven- 
directed " in public matters, he was most unfortunate in his pri- 
vate concerns. As an instance : he commenced, in Philadelphia, 
the erection of a magnificent marble mansion, the grounds of 
which were to occupy an entire square. The cellar was three 
stories in depth, and the arches and vaults were so labyrinthine 
that visitors were often lost among them. Before the building 
had reached the second story, funds failed, and the project was 
abandoned. Much of the material was taken to erect a row of 
houses on Sansom Street, some of which are still standing. 

It was soon evident that a mere revision of the Articles of Con- 
federation would not satisfy many of the delegates. They there- 
upon set themselves to the task of originating an entirely new 
form of government. At first, the notion of a Union, National 
instead of Federative, was uppermost — a natural swinging of the 
pendulum to the opposite extreme ; — but a happy medium was 
finally struck, in which the advantages of a consolidated nation 
were secured, and the benefits of State rights retained. The New 
Constitution was signed September 17, 1787. 

It was to go into effect March 4, 1789, between any nine of 
the States which should then have adopted it. Delaware, Penn- 
sylvania, and New Jersey ratified it the same year. It was ac- 
cepted the next year by the other States, except North Carolina 
and Rhode Island, which followed in 1789 and 1790 respectively. 

The adoption of the Constitution was not secured without 
great opposition. It was powerfully sustained by James Madison, 
Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, in a series of papers called 
the " Federalist," which take rank as a literary performance with 
the celebrated letters of "Junius." Patrick Henry was bittcrl 
hostile to the new form of government. Even Jefferson himself is 
reported to have said, somewhat in derision, that the executive it 
established " was the chief of an elective monarchy, a bad edition 
of a Polish king." James Monroe, George Mason, and William 
Grayson, though strong in opposing, became prominent under it 
when it went into operation. 

Presidential elections were held in every State ratifying the 
Constitution, except in New York, where the legislature, owing to 
a disagreement between its two branches, omitted to pass a law 
dictating the mode of choosing electors. The ten States voting 



334 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1789. 

gave sixty-nine electoral votes, all for George Washington ; John 
Adams received thirty-four, and was declared Vice-President. 
At that time the electors voted for two persons ; the one receiv- 
ing the highest number being chosen President, and the next 
highest, Vice-President. A majority of the whole number was 
required for the former, but not for the latter. Adams, although 
receiving the greatest number of votes, next to Washington, was 
elected Vice-President by a minority. 

April 16th, Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, the 
seat of government. He desired to journey quietly and unosten- 
tatiously, but the public feeling was too strong to be suppressed. 
The entire route was one spontaneous ovation. Crowds flocked 
around him wherever he stopped : and corps of militia, with com- 
panies of the most eminent citizens, escorted him through their 
respective States. At Trenton, he was received by a vast throng 
and a magnificent demonstration, in which figured garlands of 
flowers and triumphal arches, and young girls chanting with their 
silvery voices praises to the chief of the Republic. A print of 
this reception — truthful in design if not artistic in execution — for 
more than seventy-five years was one of the most popular engrav- 
ings issued. The Hudson River was crossed in an elegant thirteen- 
oared barge, manned by as many pilots, symbolical of the thirteen 
States. 

The ceremonies of the inauguration took place on the 30th 
in Federal Hall, a building standing where the Sub-Treasury is 
now located. Robert Livingston, Chancellor of the State of New 
York, administered the oath in the presence of a large concourse 
of people, who shouted at its conclusion, " Long live Washington, 
President of the United States." The inaugural address was 
then delivered, and replied to on behalf of the Senate by John 
Adams, and on the part of the House by Frederick A. Muhlen- 
berg, the first Speaker. 

Notwithstanding the magnificence of the inaugural display, 
the simplicity of the President's private life is well attested. A 
letter, written by Judge Wingate and still preserved, gives an 
account of Washington's first public dinner. " The guests con- 
sisted of the Vice-President, the foreign ministers, the heads 
of departments, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and 
the senators from New Hampshire and Georgia, the then two 
most northern and southern States. It was the least showy 
meal that I ever saw at the President's table. Washington made 



1789.] 



WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



335 



his whole meal on a boiled leg of mutton, it being his custom to 
eat of but one dish. As there was no chaplain present, the Presi- 
dent himself, as he was sitting down, said a very short grace. 
After the dessert, a glass of wine was passed, and no toast. The 
President then arose and all the company, and retired to the 
drawing-room, from which the guests departed as every one 
chose, without ceremony." 

The first session of the First Constitutional Congress was 
largely occupied in getting the machinery of the government into 
working order. The subjects of commerce and finance, and the 




Randolph. Hamilton. 

WASHINGTON AND HIS CABINET. 



Washington. 



organization of subordinate departments and the judiciary, also 
demanded attention. There were nominated by the President and 
confirmed by the Senate : Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of For- 
eign Affairs (afterward known as Secretary of State) ; Alexander 
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury ; Henry Knox, Secretary of 
War, and Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General. These officers 
formed what is called the " President's Cabinet " — a body unknown 
to the Constitution. John Jay was appointed Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court, with John Rutledge of South Carolina, James 
Wilson of Pennsylvania, Robert H. Harrison of Maryland, and 
John Blair of Virginia, associates. The appointing power of the 



336 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1789. 

President now came under earnest and excited consideration, 
and it was determined that, while it was constitutionally subject 
to the assent of the Senate, the power of removal rested with him 
alone. 

Sixteen articles of amendment to the Constitution were ap- 
proved by Congress and sent to the States, only ten of which, 
however, were ratified. The most important were those which 
related to religious toleration, the right to bear arms, unrea- 
sonable searches of property or homes, a speedy trial by jury, 
and to the declaration that the powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. 

The last article was drawn to quiet the apprehensions of the 
" strict constructionists," as they were called, who feared lest the 
power of the government should be unduly centralized. Even in 
the Constitutional Convention political parties had arisen. Well- 
defined lines were not drawn, however, until the meeting of Con- 
gress. One party desired to hold the government to the exact 
letter of the Constitution. These were called " Republicans," 
and sometimes " Democrats." The other, or " Federalist," 
wished to enlarge the powers of the government by inference and 
implication. The first exercise of the veto power by the Presi- 
dent, which occurred during this session, brought out the dis- 
tinction clearly. It was on a bill fixing the ratio of representation 
by counting all the people of the States as one mass, instead of 
the population of each State severally. The veto was sustained 
by Congress, a subsequent bill on the latter-named principle being 
passed, which is yet in operation. 

Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, be- 
came the most prominent man of the Cabinet. He was born in the 
Isle of St. Croix, West Indies. When only twelve years old, he 
was entrusted with the entire responsibility of a large shipping- 
house. At fourteen, he came to the United States and entered 
King's College. Early in the Revolution, he raised a company of 
artillery, but was soon made an aide-de-camp, and won the honor 
of being called " the right arm of the commander-in-chief." At 
the conclusion of the war, he commenced the practice of law in 
New York City, where he at once rose to distinction. 

The chief features of Hamilton's financial policy were the 
assumption by the general government of the war debt of the 
several States, and the payment of the indebtedness of the country 



1790-4.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 337 

dollar for dollar, although a large proportion of the claims was 
in the hands of speculators. These measures met with bitter op- 
position, but their adoption was secured by certain compromises, 
one of which tended to allay the jealousy of the Southern people 
toward New England. This was the transfer of the seat of gov- 
ernment to Philadelphia until 1800, when it was to be permanently 
located upon the eastern bank of the Potomac. 

The third session of the First Congress was accordingly held 
at Philadelphia on the first Monday of December, 1790. At this 
time the United States Bank was established, and also a national 
mint. Both were schemes of General Hamilton, and tended 
greatly to advance the prosperity of the country. 

During the year 1790, the Indians, both at the South and in 
the Northwestern Territory, gave the government much trouble. 
Some of the Southern chiefs were induced to visit New York, 
where a treaty was signed, by which a considerable portion of the 
territory of Georgia was relinquished to them, much to the dis- 
content of that State. General Harmar, a veteran of the Revolu- 
tion, being sent to repel the hostile savages at the Northwest, was 
twice defeated — October 17th and 22d — near Chillicothe. General 
St. Clair was appointed to succeed him. Leaving Fort Washing- 
ton with about two thousand men (September, 1791), he entered 
the wilderness, where, notwithstanding the repeated cautions of 
the President to " beware of a surprise," he was caught off his 
guard, and his army routed with great slaughter. 

In the fall of 1793, " Mad Anthony " Wayne took the field with 
nearly three thousand men. He built Fort Recovery, near the 
scene of St. Clair's disaster, where he spent the winter. In the 
summer, moving down the Maumee, on the 20th of August he de- 
feated the Indians in a severely-fought battle. Laying waste their 
country, he compelled them to sue for peace. By the treaty sub- 
sequently made, the Indian title to large tracts west of the Ohio 
was extinguished. 

The Second Congress, which held its first session October, 
1 79 1, passed laws providing for a uniform militia system ; a bounty 
to vessels employed in the fisheries ; an apportionment of repre- 
sentation in Congress, the ratio being fixed at thirty-three thou- 
sand for each representative ; and an excise law, imposing a duty 
on domestic distilled spirits. The last occasioned no little alarm, 
especially in the valley of the Monongahela, where whiskey was 
the principal article of commerce. The disaffection there assumed 
22 



338 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1793-6. 

such proportions that it received the name of the " Whiskey Re- 
bellion." The President was compelled to call out the militia, 
fifteen thousand strong, which speedily quelled the uprising. 

Although Washington desired to decline a renomination, he 
finally yielded to the earnest wish of his friends. Party spirit ran 
very high during the second Presidential campaign, the lines be- 
tween the friends of Hamilton and Jefferson, the two great lead- 
ers of the Federalists and the Republicans, being sharply drawn. 
Washington, however, received the unanimous vote of the elec- 
coral college, one hundred and thirty-two. Adams, having seventy- 
seven votes, was elected Vice-President. 

The French Revolution was now at its height, and its influ- 
ence was strongly felt in the United States. The representative 
of France in this country was Edmund Charles Genet, better 
known as " Citizen Genet," a brother of the famous Madame 
Campan. He landed at Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 
1793, but before presenting his credentials to the government, he 
fitted out privateers and enlisted troops for the French service. 
He was everywhere enthusiastically received by the people, who 
demanded that their old ally should be assisted and war forthwith 
declared against Great Britain. This feeling was intensified from 
the fact that England still held possession of the forts on the 
frontier, which, by the treaty of 1783, were to have been given 
up ; while American vessels were seized in French ports, and 
American seamen impressed into English vessels. It required all 
the popularity of Washington to stem the tide and hold the gov- 
ernment to the neutrality which he had proclaimed. 

A satisfactory treaty was finally arranged with Great Britain 
by a special envoy, John Jay. It was not considered favorable 
to the United States, as one of its provisions secured to British 
citizens the payment of debts due them before the war. Party 
animosity was inflamed. The Federalists were claimed to have 
been bought by British gold. Washington was accused of being 
an enemy of his country and reproached in language such, as he 
said, could scarcely be " applied to Nero, a notorious defaulter, or 
even a common pickpocket." Fisher Ames of Massachusetts 
made a memorable speech in Congress in behalf of the treaty. 
Vice-President Adams thus described it in a letter to his wife: 
"Judge Iredell and I happened to sit together. Our feelings beat 
in unison. ' My God ! how great he is,' says Iredell. ' Noble ! ' 
said I. ' Bless my stars! ' continued he, ' I never heard anything 



1791-6.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 339 

so great since I was born.' ' Divine ! ' said I ; and then we went 
on with our interjections, not to say tears, to the end — not a dry 
eye in the House." The treaty was ratified, in spite of all oppo- 
sition, April 30, 1796. 

Genet, being superseded by his government, remained, how- 
ever, in this country, and married a daughter of George Clinton. 
He introduced into the United States the idea of democratic 
societies, similar to the Jacobin clubs of Paris. One of these was 
the " Columbian Order," or, as it was afterward styled, the 
" Tammany Society," organized by an Irishman named William 
Mooney. 

Two important treaties were concluded in 1795. One, with 
Spain, settled definitely the boundaries between the United States, 
Louisiana and Florida, and gave the right to navigate the Missis- 
sippi, and to use New Orleans as a place of deposit for ten 
years. The other, with Algiers, was not quite so advantageous 
or agreeable to contemplate. The Dey of Algiers had heard of 
the new nation which had a commerce, but no navy to protect it. 
He, therefore, with his corsairs, unhesitatingly pounced upon our 
merchantmen. Within eight years they had captured fifteen 
American vessels and made one hundred and eighty officers and 
seamen slaves. A commissioner, sent to confer with the Dey, 
received the naive reply : " If I were to make peace with every- 
body, what should I do with my corsairs? My soldiers would 
take off my head for want of other prizes." Colonel David Hum- 
phreys of Connecticut, who had the matter in charge, wrote to 
the government, saying, " If we mean to have a commerce, we 
must have a navy to defend it." Congress thereupon, in 1794, 
authorized the purchase or construction of six frigates. Mean- 
while, a most humiliating treaty was made with the Dey. The 
United States actually agreed to give eight hundred thousand 
dollars for the captives then alive, to make him a present of a 
frigate worth one hundred thousand dollars, and to pay an annual 
tribute of twenty-three thousand dollars. 

Three new States were received into the Union during Wash- 
ington's term of office. Vermont, the fourteenth State, was admit- 
ted to the Union on the 4th of March, 1791. The first settlement 
within its border was in the vicinitv of Brattleborough, in 1724. 
The territory was claimed by both New York and New Hamp- 
shire, and a bitter conflict arose in consequence. The jurisdiction 
was decided by the crown to belong to the former State ; but the 



34Q 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. 



[1792. 



inhabitants, dissatisfied with this decision, for many years carried 
on an armed strife with the New York authorities. One of the 
most prominent leaders in the contest was Colonel Ethan Allen, a 
man of marked characteristics, who wielded a powerful influence 
over his fellow-citizens. 

The bill admitting Kentucky, the fifteenth State, was passed 
February 4th, 1792. Its early history is inti- 
mately connected with the career of Daniel 
Boone, one of the most famous of hunters 
and frontiersmen. He was born in Bucks 
county, Pennsylvania, in 1735, but spent his 
youth and early manhood in North 
Carolina. In 1769, with five compan- 
ions, he penetrated the wilderness to 
the west of Virginia, where the perils 
he underwent among the Indians form 
a most exciting personal history. In 
1775, he founded Boonesborough. This 
village and Harrodsburgh, also settled 

about the same 
time, were the 



two oldest towns in 
the West, with the 
exception of a few 
French places on the 
Mississippi. Ken- 





DANIEL BOONE S EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



tucky was then made 

a county of Virginia. In 1790, it was formed into a separate 
Territory. On its becoming a State, Boone, on account of a 
defective title, was unable to hold his land, and removed to Mis- 
souri, where he died in 1821. "Kentucky afterward reclaimed 
his bones, and those of his wife," says Bancroft, " and now they 
lie buried on the hill above the cliffs of the Kentucky River, over- 
looking the lovely valley of the capital of that commonwealth. 
Around them are emblems of wilderness life ; the turf of the 
blue grass lies lightly above them ; and they are laid with their 
faces turned upward and westward, and their feet toward the 
setting sun." 



1796.] WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 341 

Tennessee, the sixteenth State, was admitted to the Union June 
1, 1796. The first settlement was made near Knoxville in 1756, 
and Nashville was founded in 1783. It was, originally, a portion 
of North Carolina, but was ceded to the general government in 
1784. The inhabitants claimed that the cession was an act of 
usurpation done by their brethren to accomplish a " good rid- 
dance," as it were, of poor relations. They declared themselves 
independent, and set up a government of their own, calling their 
country the " State of Franklin." North Carolina thereupon re- 
pealed the Cession Act, but the people of the new State, intent 
upon realizing their dreams of future greatness, adopted a consti- 
tution and elected members to the legislative bodies. General 
John Sevier, or Xavier, for he was of French descent, was chosen 
governor. Early in life, he had settled on the East Tennessee, 
where he had so many conflicts with the Indians, followed by so 
many compacts, that he acquired the name of the treaty-maker. 
The manner in which he gained a wife has hardly a parallel in the 
romance of matrimony. While in command of a small stockade 
fort on the Watauga River, and in hourly expectation of an attack 
from the Cherokee Indians under " Old Abraham," a noted chief, 
he heard the crack of a rifle, and, looking up, saw a tall, slender 
girl running toward the fort, closely pursued by the savages. 
They cut off her approach to the gate, but she leaped the pali- 
sades, and, exhausted, fell into the arms of Captain Sevier. Her 
name was Catherine Sherrill, the acknowledged belle and beauty 
of that region. She became the loving and loved wife of the cap- 
tain, and the mother of ten children. 

The financial affairs of the ''State of Franklin" were on too 
unsound a basis to promise long life. Its money was made up of 
certain domestic manufactures and the skins of wild animals. The 
salaries of the officials were measured in a manner that had the 
merit, at least, of novelty. Those of the governor, officers of 
state, and judges were rated at so many fox-skins ; and those of 
the sheriffs, constables, and other inferior officers at so many 
mink-skins. This was all well enough until some skillful counter- 
feiter sewed the tails of valuable animals upon the skins of worth- 
less ones, and brought discredit upon the whole currency. 

The disagreement between North Carolina and the would-be 
State threatened war, when, opportunely, there appeared a mes- 
senger of peace and good-will, the venerable Bishop Asbury, of 
the Methodist Church, who had come to attend the first confer- 



342 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1796-7. 

ence ever held west of the Mountains. The precepts he taught 
converted many bitter partisans into brethren and friends. In 
1790, a territorial government being organized, Sevier was elected 
to Congress, the first representative of the vast region west of the 
great mountains. 

In September, 1796, Washington, definitely declining to serve 
a third term, presented to his fellow-citizens his " Farewell Ad- 
dress." It crowned, in a fitting manner, an illustrious life, and its 
sentiments of patriotism and its sagacious political maxims will 
remain as a legacy to his countrymen through future generations. 

The candidates of the Federal party at the succeeding election 
were Adams for President and Thomas Pinckney for Vice-Presi- 
dent. The Republican, or Democratic, nominee for President 
was Thomas Jefferson ; for Vice-President, the most prominent 
was Colonel Aaron Burr. 

While the election was pending, the new minister from France, 
M. Adet, addressed to the Secretary of State, and at the same time 
published in the newspapers, a letter, which once more compli- 
cated our relations with his country. He reproached the United 
States for violation of treaty obligations, and with ingratitude 
toward France and partiality toward England. He also an- 
nounced that he had been directed to suspend his ministerial 
functions with the United States. 

Of the one hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes cast, John 
Adams received seventy-one, and Thomas Jefferson sixty-eight. 
They were therefore declared elected President and Vice-Presi- 
dent respectively. 

Washington was present at their inauguration on the 4th of 
March, 1797, and then withdrew to Mount Vernon, to spend the 
remainder of his days in retirement. His administration had 
been attended with a success hardly dreamed of at the beginning. 
Public and private credit had been restored, and ample provision 
made for the security and ultimate payment of the public debt ; 
commerce had wonderfully increased ; American tonnage had 
nearly doubled ; the products of agriculture found a ready mar- 
ket ; exports had risen from nineteen million dollars to fifty-six 
million dollars, and the imports had increased in about the same 
proportion. 

Some of the social observances originating in the time of Pres- 
ident Washington have been adhered to during successive ad- 
ministrations. They were marked for their simplicity and dignity, 



1789-97.] 



WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



343 



although coming under the ban of those who objected even to the 
minutiae of the conduct of the Republic. Every Tuesday after- 
noon, Washington gave formal levees, where considerable cere- 
mony was required. One who was present on several of these 
occasions has left an account of them. They were held in the 
dining-room of the modest house occupied b} cue President, from 
which all seats had been removed for the time, and commenced at 
three o'clock. On entering, the 
visitor saw the tall, manly 
figure of Washington, clad 
in black silk velvet, his 
hair powdered and 
gathered behind in 
a large silk bag ; 
yellow gloves on 
his hands, and hold- 
ing a cocked -hat 
with a black cock- 




MOUNT VERNON. 



ade, and the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch 
deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles, and a long sword. He 
stood always in front of the fireplace, with his face toward the 
door of entrance. The visitor was conducted to him, and his 
name distinctly announced. Washington received him with a 
dignified bow, avoiding to shake hands, even with his best 
friends. As visitors came, they formed a circle round the room. 
At a quarter past three the door closed, when the President began 
on the right, and spoke to each person, calling him by name, and 
exchanging a few words. Having finished the circuit, he resumed 
his first position, and the visitors approaching him in succession, 
bowed and retired. Within an hour the ceremony was over. 
Washington's deportment was uniformly grave ; it being sobriety, 



344 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1797. 

stopping just short of sadness. His presence inspired a venera- 
tion and a feeling of awe, rarely experienced in the company of 
any man. 

Mrs. Washington's levees, at which there were less form 
and ceremony, were held every Friday evening, the General 
being always present. 

Patrick Henry was one of those who objected to any display 
by the President. He was offered several positions under the 
government, but declined, saying that his habits of life unfitted 
him to mingle with those who were now aping the manners of a 
monarchy. 

John Adams, the second President of the United States, was 
born in Quincy, Massachusetts, October 19, 1735. He was a grad- 
uate of Harvard College, and a lawyer by profession. He was 
an indefatigable worker, and during the three years and three 
months he served in the Continental Congress he was a member 
of ninety and chairman of twenty-five committees. He was of 
middle stature, full person, and was bald on the top of his head. 
His countenance beamed with intelligence, and with moral as 
well as physical courage. His walk was firm and dignified, and 
his manner slow and deliberate. He was a man of the purest 
morals, and a firm believer in Christianity — not from habit, but 
from a diligent investigation of its proofs. 

Adams retained the cabinet left by Washington, viz. : Timothy 
Pickering, Secretary of State ; Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the 
Treasury ; James Mc Henry, Secretary of War ; and Charles Lee, 
Attorney-General. There were but few marked features in the 
remaining years of the eighteenth century. The most impor- 
tant events were connected with the threatened difficulty with 
France. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the American minister, 
had been dismissed by that government, and orders had been 
issued for the French marine to prey upon American com- 
merce. An extra session of Congress was thereupon called, 
and Elbridge Gerry, John Marshall, and Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney were appointed envoys to France to make a new at- 
tempt at conciliation. They were met by insulting proposals, 
being required to bribe the members of the Directory at the 
rate of two hundred and forty thousand dollars each. This 
proposition was indignantly rejected. Marshall and Pinckney 
were soon dismissed, and Gerry was afterward recalled by our 
government. Great excitement was aroused in the United States, 



1797-9.] 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 



345 



and the motto, " Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute," was 
repeated with universal enthusiasm. Congress remained in ses- 
sion from November 13th to July 16th — over eight months. Com- 
mercial intercourse with France was suspended ; a regular army 
was ordered to be raised, and a navy department organized ; 
Benjamin Stoddart, of Maryland, was appointed first secretary ; 
and General Washington was placed at the head of the army, 
Alexander Hamilton being selected by him as the active com- 
mander. 

Fortunately, there was no need for their services ; the only 
warlike demonstrations on the part of the United States being the 
capture, by the frigate Constella- 
tion, Commodore Truxton, of the 
French war-vessels LTnsurgent and 
La Vengeance. In 1799, Napoleon 
Buonaparte became First Consul 
of France, and with him, his broth- 
er, Joseph Buonaparte, acting as 
one of the commissioners, the 
United States made an amicable 
settlement (1800). 

In the summer of 1798, owing 
to the violent denunciations of 
the government by the friends of 
France, Congress passed the 
"Alien and Sedition Laws." The 

former act gave the President authority to order any foreigner, 
whom he might believe dangerous to the peace, to depart out of 
the country, under a very heavy penalty for disobedience. It also 
extended the period required for naturalization to fourteen years. 
The Sedition law made it a crime for any one to " write, print, 
utter, or publish any false, scandalous or malicious" statement 
against either Congress or the President. A number of promi- 
nent men were tried under these acts. The harshness with which 
they were treated inflamed the public mind to a high pitch against 
the Federals, and served to render the administration of Adams 
exceedingly unpopular. The legislatures of Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia passed denunciatory resolutions, which became the corner- 
stones of the growing Democratic party. 

On the 14th of December, 1799, occurred the death of General 
Washington at Mount Vernon. The news plunged the country 




NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 



346 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1800. 

into the deepest grief, and throughout its borders, in city and ham- 
let, there were manifestations of the public sorrow by solemn ser- 
vices, by the adjournment of all public bodies, and by glowing 
eulogies on the character and services of the deceased. His 
remains were deposited in a family vault on the banks of the 
Potomac, where they still lie entombed. 

In the summer of 1800, the seat of the government was re- 
moved to the District of Columbia, and here, on the 22d of 
November, Congress assembled and was addressed by Adam* 
for the last time, as President. The capital was then a strange 
conglomeration of splendid buildings, half finished, and wretched 
huts. Mrs. Adams writes as follows: " I arrived in Washington 
on Sunday last, without meeting any accident worth noticing, 
except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore and going eight 
or nine miles on the Fredericksburgh road, by which mistake we 
were obliged to go the other eight miles through the woods, 
where we wandered two hours without finding a guide or path. 
But woods are all you see from Baltimore until you reach this 
city, which is only so in name." Only one wing of the Capitol 
had been erected ; the " White House " was a mere barrack. 
Near by was a structure built for the Treasury Department, but 
it was so small that it did not afford comfortable room for the 
clerical force, then fifty in number. The records were deposited in 
a building known as Sear's Store, which soon after burned, and 
the documents, many of them of great value, were destroyed. 

A single packet-sloop brought all the office furniture of the 
several departments from Philadelphia, besides the " seven large 
boxes and four or five smaller ones," which contained the archives 
of the government. 

A quaint traveler of the period, speaking of the society of the 
capital, thus writes : " I obtained accommodations at the Wash- 
ington Tavern, which stands opposite the Treasury. At this 
tavern I took my meals, where there were to be found, every day, 
a number of clerks employed in the different offices of the govern- 
ment, together with about half a dozen Virginians and a few New 
England men. There was a perpetual conflict between these 
southern and northern men, and one night I was present at a 
vehement discussion that ended in a bet." 

In the fall of 1800, occurred the third presidential election. 
The candidates of the Federal party were John Adams for Presi- 
dent and Charles C. Pinckney for Vice-President. The candi- 



1800.] ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 347 

dates of the Republicans were Thomas Jefferson and Colonel 
Aaron Burr. It was a very heated political contest, and resulted 
in seventy-three votes for Jefferson ; seventy-three for Burr ; 
sixty-five for Adams, and sixty-four for Pinckney. There being 
a tie, the election was to be decided by the House of Representa- 
tives, as provided by the Constitution. 

The eighteenth century closed with a population in the United 
States of five million three hundred and five thousand nine hun- 
dred and twenty-five. There was every prospect of continued 
prosperity and peace. The masses, contented and happy, pur- 
sued their avocations with a certainty of protection and safety 
under the laws. The administration of Adams, now just ending, 
had secured the respect of nations abroad, if it had not gained 
the popularity of the people at home. 

Among the many interests which had an independent origin 
during the first twenty years of the republic, were notably several 
of the churches. The Methodists had an existence, though not 
an organization, in the country as early as 1776, there being at 
that time a number of ministers of this denomination in the colo- 
nies. The members of this church suffered considerably during 
the Revolution from what was thought to be an undue partiality 
to England, owing to their connection with the Wesleyan Church 
in that country. In 1784, Dr. Coke was sent over from England 
as superintendent by Wesley, and a formal organization soon 
followed. In that year, this body numbered forty -three preachers 
and thirteen thousand seven hundred and forty members. 

The Presbyterian Church, having been seriously interrupted 
by the Revolutionary War, was reorganized in 1788. It had then 
one hundred and eighty-four ministers and four hundred and 
thirty-five churches. The following year, the first general assem- 
bly was held in Philadelphia. 

In September, 1785, the Episcopal Church was organized in 
the United States, its first Bishop being Rev. Samuel Seabury, 
D.D., who was consecrated in Scotland in 1784 as Bishop of 
Connecticut. 

In 1786, the Roman Catholic Church may be said to have been 
founded in the United States, as, in that year, Rev. John Carroll 
was appointed Vicar-General by the Pope, and took up his official 
residence at Baltimore. In 1789, he was consecrated as the first 
Roman Catholic Bishop of the country. 

The Unitarians, as a sect, appeared first in 1787, a number 



348 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1768-92. 

during that year seceding from the Episcopal Church _n New 
England. In 1794, Dr. Joseph Priestley came to America, from 
which date may be reckoned the growth of this denomination. 

Though the commerce of the country was well established, 
only a mere glimpse of its rich mineral resources and its agricul- 
tural capabilities had yet been obtained. The immense coal- 
fields of Pennsylvania had been discovered, and small quantities 
of coal had been sent to market at Philadelphia, but its use was 
not understood, and it was finally broken up and used to mend 
the roads. Cotton-seed was brought to Georgia from the Bahamas 
in 1786, and its cultivation commenced immediately. The cotton- 
gin of Eli Whitney, patented in 1794, increased its production 
many fold, while the Arkwright machine for the manufacture of 
cotton, a model of which was brought to this country by one of 
his apprentices named Slater, still further tended to its exten- 
sive cultivation. The first cotton-mill in the United States was 
erected at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1787. 

Mackenzie gives an interesting account of the origin of the 
cotton-gin : " In 1768, Richard Arkwright invented a machine for 
spinning cotton, vastly superior to anything hitherto in use. Next 
year, a greater than he, James Watt, announced a grander inven- 
tion, his steam-engine. England was now ready to begin her great 
work of weaving cotton for the world ; but where was the cotton 
to be found ? Three or four years before Watt patented his 
engine and Arkwright his spinning-frame, there was born in a 
New England farm-house a boy whose work was needed to com- 
plete theirs. Eli Whitney was a born mechanic. It was a neces- 
sity of his nature to invent and construct. As a mere child he 
made nails, pins, and walking-canes by novel processes, and thus 
earned money to support himself at college. In 1792, he went to 
Georgia to visit Mrs. Greene, the widow of General Greene of 
Revolutionary memory. In that primitive society, where few of 
the comforts of civilized life were yet enjoyed, no visits were so 
like those of the angels as the visits of a skillful mechanic. Eli 
constructed marvelous amusements for Mrs. Greene's children. 
He overcame all household difficulties by some ingenious con- 
trivance. Mrs. Greene learned to wonder at him, and to believe 
nothing was impossible for him. One day she entertained a party 
of her neighbors. The conversation turned upon the sorrows of 
the planter, and that unhappy tenacity with which the seeds of 
the cotton adhered to the fibre was elaborately bemoaned. With 



1800.] LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 349 

an urgent demand from England for cotton, with boundless lands 
which grew nothing so well as cotton, it was hard to be so utterly 
baffled. Mrs. Greene had unlimited faith in her friend Eli. She 
begged him to invent a machine which should separate the seeds 
of cotton from the fibre. 

" Eli had never even seen cotton in seed. He, however, 
walked to Savannah, and there obtained a quantity of uncleaned 
cotton. Returning, he shut himself in his room, and brooded 
over the difficulty which he had undertaken to conquer. All that 
winter he labored, devising, hammering, building up. rejecting, 
beginning afresh. He had no help. He could not even buy 
tools, but had to make them with his own hands. At length hi? 
machine was completed, rude, but effective. Mrs. Greene invited 
the leading men of the State to her house, and conducted them in 
triumph to the building in which it stood. The owners of un- 
profitable cotton-lands looked on, with a wild flash of hope light- 
ing up their desponding hearts. Possibilities of untold wealth to 
each of them lay in that clumsy structure. The machine was put 
in motion. It was evident to all that it could perform the work 
of hundreds of men. Eli had gained a great victory for man- 
kind. In that rude log-hut of Georgia, Cotton was crowned 
King, and a new era was opened for America and the world." 

During the Revolutionary struggle, as we have seen, the true 
patriots suffered every inconvenience and privation in order to 
assist the grand result. Sage and raspberry leaves substituted a 
beverage in place of imported tea. Coffee and chocolate, sugar 
and all kinds of spices disappeared from country towns. Salt 
was scarce, and salt-pans were settled along the sea-coast, where 
it was made at expensive rates. Women sometimes hid small 
quantities in their pockets, and thus smuggled it into the country. 
The mills being dismantled by both parties, people in Virginia 
and elsewhere were forced to live on pounded corn. Yet, amidst 
the almost universal distress, there were exceptions of comfort 
and even luxury. There were degrees of patriotism, and love of 
self sometimes dominated over love of country. It is related that 
certain women, not having the self-denial to do without their 
favorite beverage, had tea surreptitiously served to them in the 
hot-water jug, the empty coffee-pot standing by its side, to be 
sent out, in case of unexpected guests, for a supply of hastily- 
steeped sage or raspberry leaves. 

During Washington's administration, soon after the advent of 



350 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1783-1800. 

Citizen Genet, numbers of French people, especially those living 
in the West Indies, flocked to America. Although they mingled 
but little socially with Americans, their manners were servilely 
copied by a certain set, much to the disgust of the staid and sober 
worthies of the time. The term " French airs," as a sobriquet 
of contempt, had its origin among the respectable conservatives, 
who felt outraged by the new dispensation of fashion. 

Now came in garments of a loose flowing exterior, which, as a 
quaint writer has observed, " left it impossible to make any mis- 
take as to the real symmetry of the figures of our belles." The 
stiff", hooped petticoats, high, towering head-dresses, and com- 
pressed waists, gave place quickly to scant skirts, hair arranged 
after the manner of the Goddess of Liberty, and a style of gar- 
ment known as that of the " First Empire," very short as to the 
waist, with low corsage, and a skirt reaching scarcely to the 
ankle. At this time first appeared what are called pantaloons, in 
distinction to breeches and stockings. They were garments with 
feet on them, fitted close to the leg and let into the shoes. But 
the American gentlemen, less subject to change than their fair 
sisters, in their cocked-hats, silver-set buckles, broad-skirted 
coats, black velvet small-clothes, and silk stockings, regarded the 
new apparel with seeming contempt, and it was more than twenty 
years before they could be brought to adopt a style that finally 
led to the wearing of the present bifurcated garments. 

To the French, at this time, are we indebted for confectioneries 
and bonbons, jewelry and trinkets, and an entire change in our 
notions of dancing and music. They introduced the use of the 
piano, and created a love for other musical instruments, the violin 
and the clarionet, while they taught us the beauties of orchestral 
and concerted singing. The staid, measured English dances, 
stately, dignified, and monotonous, gave way to the lively quad- 
rille or cotillion, with its frequent and rapid changes. Gold 
watches and gilded frames for pictures and mirrors came in with 
them. They established public baths and transferred the liking 
for cleanliness from the house and its surroundings to the person. 
They taught us, in our table diet, to use soups, salads, sweet oil, 
tomatoes, and ragouts, and brought with them our first notions of 
mattresses and high bedsteads. If they did not succeed in mak- 
ing the United States their allies in the war then waging, they 
did more — they conquered the people in their homes, and their 
dominion in the world of fashion continues to this dav. 



1800.] LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 35 1 

Gold-headed canes and gold snuff-boxes were still particularly 
delighted in by old gentlemen. It was fashionable to proffer a 
stranger or an acquaintance a friendly pinch of snuff, and if the 
box was of peculiar elegance in design or material, so much 
oftener was it brought out. It is said of Silas Deane, that he had 
one glittering with diamonds, a present from royalty, which he 
was exceedingly fond of displaying. His friends often bantered 
him on the subject, and Charles Thomson, who knew him well, 
once broke out into a full laugh at the persistency with which the 
old gentleman urged it upon his notice. 

Wigs for men and caps for women disappeared near the close 
of the century. The wearing of boots was first commenced about 
this time, two prominent styles being called after the famous 
generals, Suwarrow and Wellington. " I remember," says a 
writer, " my first pair of Suwarrows. They made a part of the 
great equipment with which I came from college into the world. 
Four skeins of silk did I purchase of a mercer, and equal expense 
did I incur with the sweeper for aid in twisting them into tassels. 
I would incur double the expense now to have the same feeling 
of dignity that I enjoyed then when walking in those boots. I 
stepped long and slowly, and the iron heels, which it pleased me 
to set firmly on the pavement, made a greater clatter than a troop 
of horse, " shod with felt." But if I wore them with pride, it was 
not without suffering, nor did I get myself into them without 
labor. Before I attempted to draw them on, I rubbed the inside 
with soap and powdered my instep and heel with flour. I next 
drew the handles of two forks through the straps, lest they should 
cut my fingers, and then commenced the ' tug of war.' I con- 
tracted myself into the form of a chicken trussed for the spit, and 
whatever patience and perseverance Providence had given me I 
tested to the utmost. I cursed Suwarrow for a Scythian, and 
wished his boots ' hung in their own straps.' I danced around 
the room upon one foot many times, and, after several intervals 
for respiration and pious ejaculation, I succeeded in getting my 
toes into trouble, or, I may say, purgatory. Corns I had, as 
many as the most fanatic pilgrim would desire for peas in his 
shoes, yet I walked through the crowd (who were probably 
admiring their own boots too much to bestow a thought upon 
mine) as if I were a carpet-knight, capering upon rose-leaves. I 
was in torment, yet there was not a cloud upon my brow. I 
could not have suffered for principle as I suffered for those mem- 



352 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. [1783-1800. 

orable boots. The coat I wore was such as fashion enjoined ; the 
skirts were long and narrow, like a swallow's tail, two-thirds at 
least of the whole length. The portion above the waist composed 
the other third. The waist was directly beneath the shoulders ; 
the collar was a huge roll reaching above the ears, and there were 
two lines of brilliant buttons in front. There were nineteen but- 
tons in a row. The pantaloons (over which I wore the boots) 
were of non-elastic corduroy. It would be unjust to the tailor to 
say that they were fitted like my skin ; they sat a great deal 
closer. When I took them off, my legs were like fluted pillars, 
grooved with the cords of the pantaloons." 

Gentlemen at this time wore no beard, whiskers, or mustaches, 
but invariably appeared with faces as clean-shaven and smooth as 
that of a girl, a full beard being held as an abomination, and fitted 
only for the Hessians, heathen or Turks. 

In 1793, the first cigars were smoked in this country, being 
used in that year in Philadelphia as a preventive of the yellow 
fever, which raged with considerable violence. 

Independence in political feeling was a leaven which soon 
communicated itself to social relations. The distinction in man- 
ner and in dress between different classes, heretofore so marked 
as to be instantly recognized, now speedily disappeared. Ser- 
vants became domestics or " helps," and the titles master and 
mistress, which had been formerly always observed, grew to be 
confined only to the holders of negro slaves. Equality in legal 
rights seemed to be understood as applying to all other concerns 
in life. The maid-servant discarded her short-gown and petti- 
coats, and copied the dress of her mistress both in style and 
material, as far as her purse would allow. The apprentice began 
to blush at his leather apron and breeches and his baize vest, and 
supplied himself, at second-hand or otherwise, with the fac-simile 
of his master's visiting suit. The title of Mr., from being a distin- 
guished honor, grew to be the essential accompaniment of every 
name, until it has finally been given indiscriminately to every 
male in the land, and to omit it, when speaking of a great man, is 
a sign of distinction. 

So rapidly did the new ideas spread, and so marked was their 
effect, that Lafayette, on his second visit to this country, asked 
with astonishment, " But where are the people? " He saw only 
crowds of well-dressed citizens, and sought in vain for the distinc- 
tions which were in force during his previous sojourn here. 



1800.] LIFE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 353 

About this time carpets began to supersede the curved and 
figured white sand. They were used, however, to cover only a 
portion of the floor, in the centre of the apartment. The unaccus- 
tomed visitor sometimes showed signs of genuine distress at being 
obliged to walk on them, and sought, by stealing closely along 
the wall, to avoid soiling the beautiful thing upon the floor. 

Large, deep fireplaces were still the rule. Facing their well- 
controlled and unvarying heat, the housewives would bake such 
pastry, bread, and biscuits in their open tin ovens as can now 
hardly be matched ; while before them were turned to a crisp 
brown the Johnny or " Journey " cakes that had been thrown in 
lumps from some distance upon a broad board, and by their own 
cohesion stuck fast until done. Dr. Franklin had invented a stove 
which, as fuel grew scarce, had gradually been coming into use, 
although a wise and thoughtful physician had named it " Frank- 
lin's little demon." The walls of the houses and the ceilings 
were whitewashed, and only among the most wealthy could be 
seen the paper hangings just introduced. 

The lighting of the houses, but a dim illumination at the best, 
was accomplished by means of candles. Among the very wealthy, 
wax ones were occasionally seen, but the most common in use were 
of tallow dipped or run in moulds, and were set in brass or copper 
candlesticks. An Argand lamp, in which was burned whale-oil, 
was a rare luxury. Thomas Jefferson brought the first one from 
abroad near the close of the century, and presented it to his friend, 
Charles Thomson. 




WASHINGTON AND L.AFAYETTB. 




CHAPTER X. 

AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURE®— 1800-1820. 

( HE people having failed to elect a 
President, the House of Repre- 
sentatives, on the nth of Febru- 
ary, 1 801, began to ballot therefor. 
The first count showed eight 
States for Jefferson, six for Burr, 
and two divided. By the popu- 
lar vote, there had been a decided 
majority in favor of Jefferson, but 
the " Federalist " party had the 
greater number of States in the 
House, and seemed to be deter- 
mined to defeat the people's will. 
Nineteen ballots gave the same result, the House remaining in 
session all night. On the next day, there were nine ballots and 
no choice. On the 13th, one ballot was had; on the 14th, four; 
on the 16th, one — all with the same result. On the 17th, two 
ballots were cast, and on the latter one — the thirty-sixth in all — 
Jefferson was elected President, and Burr, Vice-President. 

March 4, 1801, the third President took the oath of office, 
which was administered to him by the eminent statesman, John 
Marshall of Virginia, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

Jefferson was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, on the 
2d of April, 1743. He graduated at William and Mary College, 
and fitted for the bar, where his fees during the first year of 
his practice amounted to over three thousand dollars. In 1774, 
he published a powerful pamphlet, entitled "A Summary View of 
the Rights of British America." This was republished in Great 
Britain under the auspices of Burke. Jefferson was the author 



1801.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 355 

of the Declaration of Independence. The room which he occu- 
pied, the desk at which he sat, and the house that sheltered him 
while employed in its composition, are still pointed out in Phila- 
delphia. To Jefferson we are also indebted for the system of 
coinage now in use, with the dollar as a unit and the other denom- 
inations on a decimal basis, he giving them their several names. 
In 1784, he wrote a little work, which was greatly admired, called 
" Notes on Virginia," in reply to certain questions put by a French 
gentleman, embracing a general view of his State, its geography, 
government, etc. While Vice-President under Washington, he 
prepared, at his favorite retreat, Monticello, a manual for the 
Senate, which became the standard for Congress, as well as for 
other deliberative bodies. 

In person, Jefferson was six feet two inches in height, thin, but 
well formed, erect in his carriage, and imposing in his appearance. 
His complexion was fair: his hair, originally red, became in old 
age white and silvery ; his eyes were light-blue, sparkling with in- 
telligence and beaming with philanthropy ; his nose was large, his 
forehead broad, and his whole countenance indicative of great sensi- 
bility and profound thought. Though of aristocratic birth, he was 
intensely democratic. He eschewed breeches and wore panta- 
loons ; fastened his shoes with leather strings instead of buckles ; 
abolished the Presidential levees ; concealed his birthday to 
prevent its being celebrated, as the President's had been hitherto ; 
and even disliked the term, Mister. Washington went to the 
Capitol in a magnificently -decorated carriage drawn by four 
cream-colored horses, and with servants in livery. Jefferson rode 
thither alone, on horseback, hitched his horse to a post, and, going 
in, delivered a fifteen-minutes address. After that he merely sent 
his " message " by a secretary, as has been the custom ever since. 
John Jay, in lamenting this tendency to republican simplicity, 
says that " with small clothes and breeches, the high tone of 
society departed." 

The new cabinet was composed of James Madison, Secretary 
of State; Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts, Secretary of War; 
and Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts, Attorney-General. Robert 
Smith of Maryland soon after succeeded Benjamin Stoddart as 
Secretary of the Navy, and Alber': Gallatin of Pennsylvania fol- 
lowed Samuel Dexter as Secretary of the Treasury — the latter 
two officers having been retained for a short time from Adams's 
cabinet. 



356 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1801. 




JEFFERSON GOING TO HIS INAUGURATION. 



Albert Gallatin is 
r»*t*;n vonnected, in the 
financial history of our 
country with Robert 
Morris nnd Alexan- 
der HaruVon. These 

three were the founders of the monetary policy of the Repub- 
lic. When Gallatin came into the cabinet, he was directed by 
the Preside, ir to scrutinize with great care the accounts of the 
government, w order to discover the blunders and alleged frauds 
of Hamilton, and to ascertain what charges could be made 
against him. T^e direction was obeyed very thoroughly, as the 
new Secretary, having no great regard for the leading Federalist, 
came to his task with a good appetite. Struck by the almost 
absolute perfectioL of the system of the first head of his depart- 
ment, as revealed by the examination, Gallatin reported to the 
President that any change would injure it, and that Hamilton 
had made no blunders and committed no frauds. 

Such a report was worthy to come from one who, having ren- 
dered some service to Mr. Baring in the negotiation of a loan to 
France, and being offered some shares which, without advancing 



1801.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 357 

a penny, would have realized him a fortune, made this memorable 
reply : " I thank you, but I will not accept your obliging offer, 
because a man who has had the direction of the finances of his 
country as long as I have, should not die rich." In this connec- 
tion it is worth remembering that Hamilton, while Secretary of 
the Treasury, once sent a note to a friend, in which he begged the 
loan of twenty dollars for his personal use. 

Jefferson's accession to office was a complete revolution in the 
politics of the country, peacefully, but none the less thoroughly 
effected. The party he represented had been organized under his 
auspices during the administration of Washington. It claimed the 
name of Republican, while its opponents called it Democratic, a 
word recently introduced from France. That term involving the 
looseness, almost licentiousness of character which had marked the 
Jacobins of Paris, it was seldom used or countenanced by Jeffer- 
son. But, as often happens, this appellation given in derision be- 
came a talisman and a watchword. 

Various other nicknames have been applied to the party at 
different times. Thus, in Jefferson's day, its members were oc- 
casionally styled Jacobins. During Madison's administration 
the Republicans were called " Bucktails," from a conspicuous 
feature in the uniform of a Tammany Indian, that society being 
even then a power in the politics of the country. Later, as in 
Jackson's time, they became " Loco Focos," because, at a meeting 
in Tammany Hall, the lights, having been extinguished, were relit 
with loco-foco matches, then just coming into use, which several 
of the members, expecting such an event, had carried in their 
pockets. Still later they were termed " Hunkers " and " Barn- 
burners," " Hard Shells " and " Soft Shells." 

The central idea around which the party revolved was the 
diffusion of power among the people. To this touchstone was 
brought every principle that agitated the politics of the country, 
whether it related to a national bank, a tariff, taxes, or slavery. 
It held that in the States themselves resided the original and 
inherent sovereignty. For certain and only specified purposes, 
some of this had been delegated in two directions— to the general 
government, as a bond of union between all of the States, and to 
the counties, towns, cities, villages, and corporations within their 
borders, for particular objects. The local authorities were to take 
care of all home legislation, while the central government was to 
be made manifest only by acts of a general character. 



358 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1801-2. 

Jefferson's policy was fully set forth in his first inaugural: 
Equal and exact justice to all men ; peace, commerce, and friendly 
relations with foreign nations, entangling alliances with none ; 
the support of the State governments in their rights ; the preser- 
vation of the general government in its constitutional vigor ; a 
jealous care of the rights of election ; a well-disciplined militia ; 
honest payment of the debt ; economy in the public expenditures ; 
encouragement of agriculture and commerce ; freedom of the' 
press ; freedom of the person, and trial by jurors impartially 
selected. 

In June, Jefferson removed Elizur Goodrich, a Federalist, 
from the office of Collector of the port of New Haven, appointing 
in his place Samuel Bishop, a Democrat. This was the first dis- 
placement for political causes, and, as it happened, was a case of 
peculiar hardship, as Mr. Goodrich was nearly eighty years of 
age and quite infirm. In Jefferson's letter defending his action is 
found the doctrine which Governor William L. Marcy afterward 
curtly expressed in the apothegm, " To the victors belong the 
spoils." It also contains a sentence that has become almost a 
proverb — " If a due participation of office is a matter of right, 
how are vacancies to be obtained ? Those by death are few, by 
resignation none." 

The Sedition Act was now expiring by limitation, and those 
persons suffering its penalties in the different jails throughout 
the country were released. The alien law was also modified by 
reducing the time of naturalization to five years. 

Among other congressional measures were the establishment 
of a military academy at West Point, which had been recom- 
mended by Washington ; the discontinuance of the internal tax 
on distilled spirits and a variety of other manufactures ; the 
appropriation of seven million and three hundred thousand dol- 
lars annually to the sinking fund ; the prohibition of the importa- 
tion of slaves into any of those States which had themselves 
forbidden their admission ; and the founding of a public library. 

The last-named bill was approved by the President on the 
26th of January, 1802, and John Beckley of Virginia, the clerk of 
the House of Representatives, was appointed librarian. In April 
of that year, the catalogue of the library embraced two hundred 
and twelve folios, one hundred and sixty-four quartos, five hun- 
dred and eighty-one octavos, seven duodecimos, and nine maps. 
The nucleus of the library was ordered from London by Samuel 



1802.] 



JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



359 



A. Otis, who was for twenty-five years the honored Secretary of 
the Senate. The books reached this country packed in trunks, 
and were forwarded to the new metropolis, where they were 
assigned a room in the " Palace in the Wilderness," as the unfin- 
ished Capitol was then derisively called by those who preferred 
New York or Philadelphia as the seat of government. The loca- 
tion of the library was changed several times, once because the 
books were damaged by 
a leaky roof. In the ab- 
sence of other suitable 
places in the primitive 
city, it became a great 
resort for students, poli- 
ticians, and even fashion- 
able people. 

It is related of Chief- 
Justice Marshall, that 
once, in taking a book 
from an upper shelf in 
one of the alcoves, he 
pulled down a number 
of ponderous tomes, 
which threw him to the 
floor. Recovering his 
footing, the old gentle- 
man dryly remarked, 
" I've laid down the law 
out of the books many a 
time in my long life, but 

this is the first time they have laid me down!" In one of the 
many alcoves, where the belles of those days came to receive the 
homage of their admirers, a wealthy member of Congress, who 
was preparing himself for a speech, heard near by the voice of 
his daughter, whom some penniless adventurer was persuading 
to elope with him. The irate father hastened to put a stop to the 
proceeding, and adjourned the action sine die. 

Ohio, the seventeenth State of the Union, was received No- 
vember 29, 1802. The name was derived from that of its principal 
stream, meaning " River of blood." It was the first State carved 
out of the Northwestern Territory. This region was explored 
in 1680 by the French voyageur La Salle. A company of emi- 




CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



360 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1802. 

grants from New England went through the wilderness to Pitts- 
burg in 1787. Here they built a boat, the Mayflower, in which, 
the next spring, they floated down the Ohio. Landing opposite 
Fort Harmar, they made the first permanent settlement, which 
they named Marietta, after Marie Antoinette, the queen of France. 
The next year, Cincinnati, then called Losanteville, was founded. 
At the time of the cession of this territory to the United States, 
Virginia reserved three million seven hundred and nine thousand 
eight hundred and forty-eight acres near the rapids of the Ohio, 
for her State troops, and Connecticut three million six hundred 
and sixty-six thousand nine hundred and twenty-one acres near 
Lake Erie, thus laying the foundation of her large school fund. 
In 1800, the jurisdiction over these two tracts was relinquished 
to the general government, the States selling the soil to settlers. 
Cleveland was settled in 1796, on a portion of the Connecticut 
Reserve sold to a company from that State, and surveyed by 
Moses Cleveland. 

In 1802, Jefferson received information that Spain, by a secret 
treaty, had ceded to France the tract called Louisiana, reaching 
from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Soon after, it 
was announced that the treaty-right to the use of New Orleans as 
a place of deposit for the United States had ceased. A war with 
Spain seemed imminent. Jefferson, bent on a pacific policy, sent 
James Monroe as minister plenipotentiary to act with Mr. Liv- 
ingston at Paris, for the purchase of New Orleans and the Flor- 
idas. Buonaparte, being then on the verge of a war with England, 
in which he would be likely to lose his continental possessions, 
and also being in want of money, instructed his ministers to sell 
not only New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana, for fifty 
millions of francs. Instead of the cession of a town and its incon- 
siderable territory, Monroe now found a vast portion of the conti- 
nent at his disposal. He had asked for the mere privilege of 
navigating the Mississippi, and its entire sovereignty was within 
his grasp. The sum fixed by Buonaparte being considered too low 
by M. de Marbois, he stated the price at eighty millions, twenty 
of which were to be used in paying debts due by France to the 
citizens of the United States, arising from seizures of ships made 
in time of peace. The First Consul was so much pleased with the 
bargain that he made his minister a present of one hundred and 
ninety-two thousand francs. 

Of this acquisition, Livingston said to Monroe, " We have lived 



1803-4.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 361 

long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives ; " while 
Napoleon exclaimed, " This accession of territory strengthens 
forever the power of the United States ; and I have just given to 
England a maritime rival that will, sooner or later, humble her 
pride." 

Much difference of opinion existed in the United States as to 
the constitutionality of the purchase, and Jefferson himself believed 
that an amendment to the Constitution was necessary ; but the 
action of his ministers was so generally approved that none was 
ever presented. The treaty was ratified by the Senate on the 20th 
of October, 1803, by a vote of twenty-four to seven, and the reso- 
lutions in the House providing for the payment of the money and 
the government of the new territory, passed by a vote of ninety 
to twenty-five. 

Louisiana then comprised one million one hundred and seventy- 
one thousand nine hundred and thirty-one square miles, with a 
mixed population of eighty or ninety thousand French, Spaniards, 
Creoles, Americans, English, Germans, and slaves, besides an un- 
counted horde of savages. Out of this magnificent domain we 
have since cut five States, five Territories, and parts of four 
States and of one Territory. On Jefferson's recommendation, an 
expedition, under the command of Captains Lewis and Clarke, 
was sent to explore the new territory. It occupied about two 
years and three months, and the history of their adventures forms 
one of the most romantic and thrilling episodes in the annals of 
the western country. They were eminently successful in geo- 
graphical discoveries, and brought back the first accurate in- 
formation respecting this previously unknown half of the con- 
tinent. 

In 1804, the twelfth amendment to the Constitution was sub- 
mitted to the people, and ratified by thirteen of the States. It 
ordained that thereafter the electors were to designate which per- 
sons were voted for as President and as Vice-President. The idea 
originated with the Republicans, in order to provide against the 
chance of another disappointment such as had threatened them in 
1 801 ; and it was, of course, opposed by the Federalists. 

The Barbary States, notwithstanding the treaty with Algiers, 
were still committing depredations on the commerce of the United 
States. Their insolence and audacity were fast becoming unbear- 
able. When Captain Bainbridge, in 1800, paid the annual tribute, 
the Dey demanded the use of his vessel to convey an ambassador 



362 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1804. 

to the Sultan at Constantinople. Bainbridge remonstrated, but 
the Dey haughtily said, " You pay me tribute, by which you be- 
come my slaves, and, therefore, I have a right to order you as I 
think proper." His vessel being under the guns of the pirate's 
castle, Bainbridge was forced to comply. The mission, after all, 
had something of a recompense, for the captain was the first to 
display the flag of the Republic on the waters of the Golden 
Horn and before the minarets of Istamboul ; and the Sultan re- 
garded it as a favorable omen of future friendship between the 
two nations, that his flag bore the device of the crescent moon, 
and the American that of a group of stars. 

The Bey of Tripoli and the Bashaw of Tunis both now 
demanded tribute of the United States. In 1804, Commodore 
Preble was sent with a squadron to bring them to terms. He 
succeeded completely in humbling their pretensions, and peace 
was declared, although sixty thousand dollars was paid as a ran- 
som for our captive sailors. Lieutenant Decatur performed a 
brilliant exploit during this brief conflict. The Philadelphia, a 
United States frigate, had struck on a rock in the Tripolitan har- 
bor, and before she could be extricated was captured, her officers 
and crew being made prisoners of war. Decatur, with seventy- 
six comrades, sailed into the harbor on the 16th of February, 1804, 
right under the guns of the castle, boarded the ship, killed or 
drove into the sea her turbaned defenders, set her on fire, and 
escaped without the loss of a man. 

Aaron Burr, the Vice-President, was a small, fair-complex- 
ioned, brilliant-eyed, fascinating man, eight and forty years of 
age ; a wit, a beau, a good scholar, a polished gentleman, a liber- 
tine, and an unscrupulous politician. He was now a candidate 
for the office of Governor of the State of New York. During the 
bitter and heated contest, Alexander Hamilton uttered some 
words in regard to Burr that he considered derogatory ; where- 
upon, maddened by defeat, he challenged Hamilton to a duel 
July 11, 1804, the two met at Weehawken, New Jersey, on the 
same spot where, only a short time before, Hamilton's son had 
been killed in a so-called affair of honor. Only one shot was 
exchanged, and Hamilton, who had fired in the air, was mortally 
wounded. 

Burr, being indicted both in New York and in New Jersey, fled 
to Philadelphia. The heartless character of the man may be seen 
in the fact that, having renewed proposals of marriage to a young 



18(M-5.] 



JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



363 



lady of that city, he wrote to his daughter, " If any male friend of 
yours should be dying of ennui, recommend him to engage in a 
duel and a courtship at the same time." 

Public sentiment with regard to the duel was divided. By 
some, it was said of Hamilton, that " he had lived like a man and 
died like a fool." In the South, where the bloody code of the 
duello was recognized, Burr was greeted as a hero ; and in strong 
Republican localities as " the 
slayer of the arch-enemy of Re- 
publicanism." At the national 
capital, the "best society" 

A, 



2Mfe§ 







treated him with respect, and 
even in the lower House of 
Congress, a leading partisan 
said, "The first duel I ever 
heard of was that of David killing Goliath. 
Our little David of the Republicans has 
killed the Goliath of the Federalists, and 
for this I am willing to reward him." But 
the virtuous and moral were filled with 
disgust, if not with horror, and echoed the sentiments of a senator 
who exclaimed, " God grant it may be the last time, as it is the 
first, that ever a man indicted for murder presides in the Amer- 
ican Senate." Burrs political career, however, was ended, and at 
the close of the session, he stepped down from the second office in 
the gift of the people, a ruined man. 

In the fifth presidential campaign, Jefferson was renominated 
on the Republican ticket, with George Clinton, of New York, for 



364 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1805-6. 

Vice-President. The Federalists offered Pinckney of South Caro- 
lina and Rufus King of New York. Such was Jefferson's popu- 
larity, that the Federal candidates carried but two States, and the 
Republicans fifteen. 

The second session of the Eighth Congress is memorable for 
two things. First ; the attempt to introduce gunboats for coast 
defence. This was one of Jefferson's favorite projects. No 
general confidence, however, was felt in the plan, and when a 
number of the boats were driven on shore and wrecked, their loss 
was not regarded as a misfortune ; while the officers of the navy 
openly expressed their satisfaction. Second ; at this time was 
seen for the first the caucus system — a word said to have had 
its origin in the term " calk-house " — a building in Boston where 
the ante-Revolutionary patriots held their meetings. There was 
now far less independent discussion, the action of the friends 
of the administration being determined beforehand in a private 
meeting. 

The defection of John Randolph of Roanoke from the Repub- 
lican ranks, about 1806, created considerable excitement. He had 
been a staunch friend of Jefferson's, but the President having re- 
fused to appoint him minister to England, Randolph took um- 
brage, and henceforth assailed the administration at every point. 
He was a genius of the first order, and famous for his wit and 
satire. " For over thirty years," says Benton, " he was the polit- 
ical meteor of Congress, blazing with undiminished splendor ; a 
planetary plague, shedding not only war and pestilence on nations, 
but agony and fear on members." 

" All parties feared him : each in turn 

Beheld its schemes disjointed, 
As right or left his fatal glance 

And spectral finger pointed. 
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down 

With trenchant wit surpassing ; 
And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand 

The robe Pretence was wearing." 

Randolph originated many queer and quaint phrases that have 
passed into the political vocabulary, and are still current. In 
the fierce debates on the Missouri Compromise measures, he gave 
to the Northern men who sustained the South, the name of" dough- 
faces " — an appellation that clung to them for years. He enun- 
ciated the doctrine of State rights in the single sentence : " When 



1807.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 365 

I speak of my country, I mean the commonwealth of Virginia." 
While in Russia, on being presented to the Emperor, he said, in 
his thin, piping voice, " How are you, Emperor ? How's madam ? " 
" I am pleased," said a gentleman to him, when meeting him for 
the first time, " to make the acquaintance of so distinguished a 
public servant. I am from the city of Baltimore. My name, sir, 
is Blunt." " Blunt — oh ! " replied Randolph ; " I should think so, 
sir," and deigned him no further notice. " I have had the plea- 
sure, Mr. Randolph," remarked another to him, " of passing your 
house recently." " I am glad of it," was the curt reply ; " I hope 
you will always do it, sir." 

Aaron Burr, after his duel with Hamilton, wrote to his son-in- 
law, Governor Alston of South Carolina : " In New York, I am to 
be disfranchised, and in New Jersey hanged. Having substantial 
objections to both, I shall not, for the present, hazard either, but 
shall seek another country. Where?" This question he never 
answered, but his restless spirit drove him West, and in that vast 
region he conceived, as is claimed, the design of forming a new 
empire. The two persons most conspicuous in his scheme were 
General James Wilkinson and Harman Blennerhassett ; the former 
betrayed him, and the latter he ruined. 

The career of Blennerhassett was as romantic as its end was 
sorrowful. With a wife of exquisite beauty, and an ample fortune, 
he left his home in Ireland and came to this country. Attracted 
by a lovely island in the Ohio River, he beautified and adorned 
it, and was living there in what is described as " a second para- 
dise." Fascinated by Burr, he was led into the wild venture 
in which he saw his fortune melt away and his home pass into the 
hands of others ; for the whole gorgeous vision that Burr had con- 
jured up vanished as suddenly as frostwork in the sunbeam. 
Political animosity sent the first whispers of suspicion over the 
mountains. Burr was accused of a conspiracy to detach the 
Western States and form another republic, of which he was to be 
president. With Blennerhassett and a number of others, he was 
arrested and brought to Richmond, Virginia. His trial, on a 
charge of high-treason, began in March, 1807, and continued all 
summer. No overt act, however, could be proved, and he was 
acquitted. The other prisoners were thereupon released. 

This year is memorable for the success that crowned the efforts 
of Robert Fulton at steam navigation. Though others had con- 
ceived, he was the first to realize the idea. Fitch, seventeen years 




THE CLERMONT, FULTON S STEAMBOAT. 



366 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1807. 

before, had placed upon the Delaware a steamboat which made 
several trips, but the attempt had been abandoned as impractica- 
ble. In 1807, however, Fulton's boat, the Clermont, was launched 
upon the Hudson and made regular passages between New York 
and Albany at the rate of five miles an hour. " The vessel," says 
a writer, " presented the most terrific appearance. The dry pine- 
wood fuel sent up many feet 
above the flue a column of ig- 
nited vapor, and, when the fire 
was stirred, tremendous show- 
ers of sparks. The wind and 
tide were adverse to them, but 
the crowds saw with astonish- 
ment the vessel rapidly ap- 
proaching them ; and when it 
came so near that the noise of 
the machinery and paddles was heard, the crews of other vessels, 
in some instances, shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific 
sight ; while others prostrated themselves, and besought Provi- 
dence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster 
which was marching on the tide, and lighting its path by the fire 
that it vomited." 

It is related of a gentleman, well known in the business circles 
of New York, that one day, being in haste to reach Albany, and 
seeing the Clermont ready to start, he went aboard. Entering 
the cabin, he saw a gentleman who, on inquiry, he learned was 
Fulton. Being told that the fare was six dollars, he counted that 
sum into his hands. Fulton held the money for some time, look- 
ing at it quietly, and then remarked, " This is the first penny I 
have received in my long effort to bring this discovery to a suc- 
cess. I am too poor, else would we have a bottle of wine together 
to mark the event." Ten years later, the same gentleman, going 
up the Hudson in one of the numerous boats that then plied upon 
the river, again saw Fulton, who, accosting him, proposed that, 
as times had changed, they should now take that bottle of wine ; 
which they did, recalling with great pleasure the memory of their 
first trip together. 

In 1 812, Fulton built at Pittsburg the first steamer to ply 
upon the Mississippi. Leaving its dockyard in October, it 
reached New Orleans, after which it was named, in December. 
The year 1807 was also marked by the publication by Wash- 



1807.] JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 367 

ington Irving, the first and best of American humorists, of his 
earliest work, " Salmagundi, or the Whim-Whams and Opinions 
of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and Others." It was followed in 
1809 by his " Knickerbocker's History of New York," which 
placed him at once among the foremost authors of the age. 

France and England were now engaged in a desperate war ; 
and the strife affected the whole civilized world. By its " Orders 
in Council," England had declared all vessels engaged in con- 
veying West India produce from the United States to Europe 
legal prizes, and several ports under the control of the French in 
a state of blockade. Napoleon thereupon issued the " Berlin 
Decree," which forbade the introduction of English goods into 
any port of Europe, even by the vessels of neutral powers. 
Other " Orders in Council " declared the whole coast of Europe 
in a state of blockade ; which Napoleon followed with his " Milan 
Decree," confiscating all vessels and cargoes violating the " Berlin 
Decree," and all vessels that should submit to be searched by the 
English. The United States was the chief sufferer by these 
vindictive measures, and expostulated, but in vain. " Join me in 
bringing England to reason," said Napoleon. " Join us in putting 
down the disturber of the world," replied England. 

The feeling in the United States was intensified by an insult 
offered to the country on the 22d of June, 1807, when the British 
ship Leopard fired into the American vessel Chesapeake off the 
coast of Virginia. The American frigate, being wholly unpre- 
pared for battle, soon struck her colors. Four of the crew, three 
being Americans by birth, were taken, on the pretence that they 
were deserters. This act was promptly disavowed by the English 
government, but no reparation was made. On the 22d of Decem- 
ber following, Congress passed the celebrated " Embargo Act," 
by which all American vessels were prohibited from sailing for 
foreign ports ; all foreign vessels from taking out cargoes ; and all 
coasting-vessels were required to give bonds to land their cargoes 
in the United States. 

This bill was violently opposed by the Federal party, and was 
extremely unpopular in the States engaged in commerce. The 
opponents, spelling the name backward, nicknamed it the O grab 
me Act. De Witt Clinton, a nephew of the Vice-President, was 
chairman of an indignation meeting in New York city, and with- 
drew his support from the administration. John Quincy Adams, 
who had favored the act, finding his course was not approved by 



368 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1809. 

the Legislature of his State, resigned his seat in the Senate, and 
informed the President that New England, if the measure were 
persisted in, would separate from the Union, at least until the 
obstacles to commerce were removed ; that the plan had already 
been adjusted, and it would be supported by the people. 

Although Jefferson had received addresses from several Legis- 
latures asking him to serve a third term, he declined, preferring 
to follow the precedent established by Washington. James Mad- 
ison, Secretary of State, was thereupon nominated for President 
by the Legislature of Virginia, and he was soon after accepted by 
the Republican members of Congress. The election resulted in 
one hundred and twenty-two votes for Madison, and one hundred 
and thirteen for Clinton as Vice-President. The Federal candi- 
dates, who were the same as at the preceding election, received 
only forty-seven votes. 

Before the conclusion of his term of office, Jefferson recom- 
mended that Congress should repeal the Embargo Act. This was 
adopted so far as related to all nations except France and Great 
Britain. 

March, 4, 1809, James Madison was inaugurated fourth President 
of the United States. He was born in King George county, Vir- 
ginia, March 16, 1751. Having graduated at Princeton College, 
he prepared for the bar, but the stirring scenes of the Revolution 
left him little time for the quiet pursuits of life. In 1780, he took 
his seat in the Continental Congress. Such became his popu- 
larity in his native State, that the law rendering any one ineligible 
after three-years service was repealed solely that he might be re- 
turned a fourth time. Mild and amiable in disposition, he earnestly 
sought to harmonize the party antagonisms and rivalries of Wash- 
ington's administration. Many of his public writings, notably the 
"Resolutions of 1798," passed by the Assembly of Virginia, in 
opposition to the " Alien and Sedition Laws," and the Report 
in their defence, rank among the greatest State papers of the 
country. 

Madison was small in stature, and calm and grave in speech. 
His eyes were blue, clear, and penetrating. He was bald on the 
top of his head, and he wore his hair powdered. His manner was 
modest and retiring, and his diffidence for a time materially inter- 
fered with his success as an orator. He bore the look of a quiet, 
unassuming student. His mind was, perhaps, not of the highest 
order, but it was symmetrical and vigorous. He possessed the 



1809-11.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 369 

genius of hard work. His memory was wonderful, and his stores 
of knowledge were perfectly at his command. His character was 
spotless, and no calumny ever attempted to sully it. In conversa- 
tion he was pleasing and instructive. Being fond of company, he 
revived the levees inaugurated by Washington. The graces and 
beauty of Mrs. Madison attracted the best of the country to her 
presence, and are still perpetuated in delightful legends of early 
society at the capital. 

Madison formed his cabinet as follows : Secretary of State, 
Robert Smith of Maryland ; Secretary of War, William Eustis 
of Massachusetts ; and Secretary of the Navy, Paul Hamilton of 
South Carolina. Albert Gallatin was retained as Secretary of 
the Treasury, and Caesar A. Rodney as Attorney-General. 

The difficulties with England continued. The United States 
government held that a foreigner could be naturalized, and thus 
become an American citizen, enjoying all the privileges of citizen- 
ship. The British doctrine, on the other hand, was " Once an 
Englishman, always an Englishman." The English naval officers, 
therefore, claimed the right of stopping American vessels on the 
high seas, searching for seamen of English birth, and pressing 
them into the navy. British ships were stationed before our har- 
bors, and every vessel coming or going was searched. Within 
eight years, nine hundred American vessels were captured for 
alleged violations of the English commercial regulations. At one 
time there were more than six thousand names registered on the 
books of the State Department of seamen who had been forced 
into the British navy. Through the indifference of the officers 
many native Americans were in this way compelled to serve 
against their country. Madison tried every means to adjust the 
differences. His pacific policy seemed, in fact, so spiritless, that 
a Federalist in Congress, losing all patience, declared that " the 
President could not be kicked into a fight." The English govern- 
ment, it is true, revoked the obnoxious " Orders in Council," but 
positively refused to yield the rights of search and impressment. 

Smarting under these insults, our seamen flung out the motto, 
"Free trade and sailors rights," and for it they were ready to fight. 
One day in May, 181 1, the frigate President having hailed the 
British sloop-of-war Little Belt, off the coast of Virginia, instead 
of a polite salutation received a cannon-shot in reply. The fire 
was returned, and the sloop was soon disabled. A civil answer 
was then given. 
24 



37° 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1809-11. 






The feeling against England was greatly aggravated by the 
current impression that British emissaries were busy in arousing 
the Indians along the northwestern border. In the Shawnee 
tribe, at this time, were two brothers, who, considering their race 

and surroundings, deserve to be 
{!)!&% reckoned with the heroes of his- 

tory. These were Tecumseh, 
sometimes called Tecumtha — 
" the wild-cat springing on its 
prey " — and Elsk watawa — " the 
loud voice." They were born 
of a Creek woman on the banks 
of the Mad River, near Spring- 
field, Ohio. The former was a 
chief and a warrior with the 
genius of a statesman. The lat- 
ter is better known as the "pro- 
phet." He was famous as an 
orator, and made the supersti- 
tions of his people the iulcrum 
of his power, pretending that he 
could even ward off the bullets 
of their enemies in battle. They 
sought to combine all the Western Indians in a defensive alliance 
against the whites. 

In 1809, General Harrison, governor of the Territory of 
Indiana, purchased a large tract on the Wabash. This gave 
great offence to Tecumseh. Indian outrages became frequent. 
At the earnest solicitation of the settlers, General Harrison 
marched, in November, 181 1, to Tippecanoe, the prophet's town, 
with a small body of troops. When within a few miles he was 
met by ambassadors asking for a conference on the following day. 
Fearing surprise, he ordered his men to lie upon their arms. 
During the night, the treacherous savages crept through the tall 
grass, and, surrounding the camp on all sides, suddenly sprang 
upon the troops like wolves. A desperate battle ensued, but the 
Indians were beaten with great slaughter, and the town was de- 
stroyed. All the tribes in that region forthwith sued for peace. 

In December, 181 1, occurred the burning of a theatre in the 
city of Richmond, where was collected an unusually large and 
brilliant audience. The governor of the State and several of 




ELSKWATAWA, THE TROPHET. 



1812.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



371 



the most prominent citizens, with their families, perished in the 
flames. It created the most profound sensation, both Houses of 
Congress wearing mourning for a month. 

Louisiana was admitted to the Union April 8, 181 2. It was then 
the extreme southwestern State. Its early history is closely con- 
nected with that of France, the name Louisiana having been given 
in honor of Louis XIV. The first permanent settlement within 
its present boundaries was at New Orleans in 171 8. About that 
time the colony was granted to the great Mississippi Company, 




burning of the RICHMOND THEATRE. — ( Facsimile of an old Print.) 



organized by John Law, at Paris, for the purpose of settling and 
deriving profit from the French possessions in North America. 
This gigantic bubble soon burst, but it resulted in a rapid emigra- 
tion to the banks of the Mississippi. December 20, 1803, after the 
purchase of Louisiana from the French, the American flag was 
first unfurled at New Orleans. This vast territory was then 
divided into two territories — Orleans, including the present State 
of Louisiana, and the district of Louisiana, which comprised the 
remainder. On the admission of the former as a State, the name 
of the latter was changed to Missouri. 

Early in 1812, an Englishman named Henry made an exposure 



372 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1812. 

to the President of an attempt in which he had been engaged at 
the instigation of the Governor-General of Canada, to excite hos- 
tility to the administration in the Eastern States, and perhaps pro- 
duce a rupture of the Union. He was unsuccessful, and finding 
his scheme repudiated by the English government, he came on to 
Washington, where he sold out his story and letters for the com- 
fortable sum of fifty thousand dollars, and then made off as quickly 
as possible. The President sent a message to Congress on the 
subject, and the so-called " Henry affair" did much to exasperate 
the authorities against England. 

The Vice-President, the venerable George Clinton, died April 
20, 1812. His place was filled by William H. Crawford of Georgia, 
the presiding officer of the Senate pro tern. 

The Democratic party being largely in favor of a war with 
England, Madison was assured that unless his opposition ceased 
he must not expect its support in the ensuing presidential cam- 
paign. He accordingly waived his objections, and was renomi- 
nated by a caucus of eighty-two Republican members of Con- 
gress ; Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts being placed on the 
ticket for Vice-President. The Federalists held a convention in 
New York, the first of the kind in the Republic. Eleven States 
were represented. It resolved to support De Witt Clinton and 
Jared Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, as President and Vice-President 
respectively. At the election, though the Federalist candidates 
were sustained by many anti-war Democrats, Madison and Gerry 
were chosen by a strong majority. 

Meanwhile war had been declared against England, June 19th. 
The act met with violent opposition from the few Federalists in 
Congress and the disaffected Democrats. Henry Clay, Speaker 
of the House, and John C. Calhoun were at the head of the " War 
Party." The Federalists and those opposing hostilities, were led 
by the venerable Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, called by his 
opponents in derision, " Josiah the First, King of New England, 
Nova Scotia, and Passamaquoddy " ; Emott of New York, and 
others. They were styled the " Peace Party." The war measure 
was adopted in the House by a vote of seventy-nine to forty-nine, 
and in the Senate, nineteen to thirteen. 

The first hostile shot was thrown only four days later by the 
ship-of-war President, in command of Commodore Rogers, who 
fired a chase-gun after the British ship Belvidera. A running en- 
gagement ensued, but the President finally gave up the pursuit. 



1812.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 373 

Never was a country more poorly prepared for war than the 
United States at this period. The President and his cabinet, 
by habit and inclination, were unfitted for a time of commotion 
and of great emergency. The dominant party had long been 
strenuously opposed to a standing army and navy, and both 
these branches were, therefore, weak and inefficient. Our army 
numbered but five thousand men, and our navy comprised only 
eight frigates and twelve sloops, while England had one thousand 
and sixty sail. The Revolutionary officers were either dead or 
had become so old and feeble as to be often an injury to the service 
which they loved so well. The West was all aflame for the war ; 
but at the East a powerful party bitterly opposed it as impolitic 
and unnecessary. Boston denounced the struggle, and the flags of 
her shipping were hoisted at half-mast when the news came of the 
declaration. All New England resounded with outcries against 
the war-policy and the war-party. The feuds of Democrats and 
Federalists, the lack of harmony in plans, the want of experience 
in military affairs, and the weakness of the executive — all conspired 
to render the result of the contest exceedingly doubtful. Nothing 
finally saved the country, under the blessing of Providence, but 
the courage of its soldiery and the valor of its little navy. 

The war opened on land with an invasion of Canada at three 
points — Detroit, Niagara, and on the St. Lawrence River. General 
Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts was appointed commander-in- 
chief, his position being at the eastern end of the line. The troops 
at the west were under General William Hull, and those in the 
centre under General Stephen Van Rensselaer. All the forces 
were to co-operate with a view to Montreal as their objective 
point. 

General William Hull, the Governor of Michigan Territory, 
promptly crossed from Detroit to Sandwich with a few hundred 
regulars and three regiments of volunteers. Instead of pushing 
forward to attack Maiden or seize Canada, Hull dawdled about, 
week after week, until the British rallying, captured Mackinaw, 
when, alarmed by the intelligence, he tamely retreated to Detroit. 

On the 1 6th of August, a beautiful Sabbath day, Brock, gov- 
ernor of Upper Canada, at the head of the British forces, landed 
and advanced to assault that post. The garrison was in line, and 
the gunners stood with lighted matches awaiting the order to 
fire. Suddenly, General Hull, apparently unnerved, directed the 
white flag — a table-cloth — to be displayed. The officers were 



374 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1812. 



thunderstruck, and even the women expressed their indignation. 
Hull was, however, averse to shedding blood, and so, without 
even stipulating for the honors of war, he surrendered not only 
Detroit, with its garrisons and stores, but the whole of Michigan. 
Among the arms was a brass cannon, on which was the inscrip- 
tion, "Taken at Saratoga, on the 17th of October, 1777." Some 




of the British officers greeted this released captive with kisses. 
It was, however, retaken on the banks of the Thames the follow- 
ing year. 

In 1 8 14, General Hull, having been exchanged, was tried by 
court-martial, and being convicted of cowardice and neglect of 
duty, was sentenced to be shot. He was, however, reprieved by 
the President in consequence of his Revolutionary services, his 
name being stricken from the army-roll. 

The attentive reader of the full history of this disgraceful affair 
knows not which to blame most, the irresolution of General Hull, 
the inefficiency of the War Department, or the incapacity of the 
officers of the eastern forces, who utterly failed to co-operate in 



1812.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 375 

this invasion, and left the English free to concentrate all their 
troops upon the western army. 

Bands of savages now roamed over all the northwest territory. 
The day before the surrender of Hull, Fort Dearborn, on the 
present site of Chicago, was surrendered, and part of the garri- 
son massacred. The whole country was alarmed. Ten thousand 
volunteers were readily obtained and placed under the command 
of General Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe. 

Late in the summer, General Van Rensselaer, with the " army 
of the Centre," as it was called, made an attempt to invade Canada. 
October 13th, he crossed the Niagara at Lewiston to attack the 
enemy on Queenstown Heights. The landing was desperately 
resisted. Colonel Scott and Captain Wool led the Americans in 
charge after charge, driving the British before them. Three 
times they won the victory. Van Rensselaer then returned to 
the American shore to bring over the rest of his troops. But the 
militia, frightened by the bloody tokens of the battle, refused to 
be taken out of the State, and fifteen hundred able-bodied men 
stood cowardly by their constitutional rights, while their com- 
rades vainly struggled against the odds of their swarming foes. 

Scott, finding himself deserted, mounted a log in front of his 
men and harangued them. " Hull's surrender," he exclaimed, 
" must be redeemed. Our condition is desperate. Let us die, 
arms in hand. Our country demands the sacrifice. The example 
will not be lost. The blood of the slain will make heroes of the 
living. Those who follow will avenge our fall, and our country's 
wrongs. Who dares to stand ? " A loud " All ! " rang along the 
line. The troops followed him with desperate courage, and of 
one thousand men who had crossed the river that morning, nearly 
all were killed or captured. 

The next day General Brock, who was killed in the action, 
was buried. At the request of Scott, then a prisoner, minute- 
guns were fired at Fort Niagara. " Cannon that but the day 
before had exploded in angry strife on one another, now joined 
their peaceful echoes over his grave." 

" While a captive in an inn at Niagara," says Headley, " Scott 
was told that some one wished to see the ' tall American.' He 
immediately passed through into the entry, when, to his astonish- 
ment, he saw standing before him two savage Indian chiefs, who 
wished to look on the man at whom they had so often fired with a 
deliberate aim. In broken English, and by gestures, they in- 



376 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1812. 



quired where he was hit, for they believed it impossible that out 
of fifteen or twenty shots not one had taken effect. The elder 
chief, named Jacobs, a tall, powerful savage, became furious at 
Scott's asserting that not a ball had touched him, and, seizing his 
shoulders rudely, turned him round to examine his back. The 
young and fiery colonel did not like to have such freedom taken 
with his person by a savage, and, hurling him fiercely aside, 
exclaimed, ' Off, villain ! you fired like a squaw.' « We kill you 

now,' was the quick and 
startling reply, as knives 
and tomahawks gleamed 
in their hands. Scott 
was not a man to beg 
or run, though either 
would have been prefer- 
able to taking his chances 
against these armed sav- 
ages. Luckily for him, 
the swords of the Amer- 
ican officers who had 
been taken prisoners 
were stacked under the 
staircase, beside which 
he was standing. Quick 
as thought, he snatched 
up the largest, a long 
sabre, and the next mo- 
ment it glittered un- 
sheathed above his head. 
One leap backward, to get scope for play, and he stood towering 
even above the gigantic chieftain, who glared in savage hate upon 
him. The Indians were in the wider part of the hall, between the 
foot of the stairs and the door, while Scott stood farther in, where 
it was narrower. The former, therefore, could not get in the rear, 
and were compelled to face their enemy. They manoeuvred to 
close, but at every turn that sabre flashed in their eyes. The 
moment they should come to blows, one, they knew, was sure to 
die; and although it was equally certain that Scott would fall 
under the knife of the survivor before he could regain his position, 
yet neither Indian seemed anxious to be the sacrifice. While 
they thus stood watching each other, a British officer chanced to 




SCOTT AND THE TWO INDIANS. 



1812.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 377 

enter, and, on beholding the terrific tableau, cried out, ' The 
guard ! ' and at the same instant seized the tallest chieftain by the 
arm, and presented a cocked pistol to his head. The next moment 
the blade of Scott quivered over the head of the other savage, to 
protect his deliverer. In a few seconds the guard entered with 
leveled bayonets, and the two chieftains were secured. One of 
them was the son of Brandt, of Revolutionary notoriety." 

General Van Rensselaer now resigning, General Smyth was 
placed in charge. He issued some grandiloquent proclamations, 
made several fruitless attempts to get into Canada, was mobbed 
by the militia, and posted as a coward ; he fought a duel with one 
of his generals, and finally resigned. 

General Dearborn determined to redeem the reputation of the 
army, and, November 20th, made a foray into Canada which 
turned out the most disgraceful of all. The troops fired into each 
other, and ran away leaving their dead on the field ; the generals 
never appeared when wanted ; then, after these exhausting labors, 
the army of the North went into winter quarters. 

The gloomy look of affairs was, however, brightened by the 
successes of our gallant little navy. On the 13th of August, the 
Essex, a thirty-two gun ship, commanded by Captain David 
Porter, met the British sloop-of-war Alert. After a brief engage- 
ment of eight minutes, the latter struck her colors. 

Three days after the surrender of Detroit, the Constitution, a 
forty-four gun ship, in command of Captain Isaac Hull, a nephew 
of General Hull, engaged the Guerriere, a thirty-eight gun ship, 
under Captain Dacres. The English vessel finally surrendered, 
but was so badly injured that she was set on fire and abandoned. 
The charm of British invincibility on the sea was now broken. 
The dismay in England was only paralleled by the joy in Amer- 
ica. It had been currently predicted in Great Britain that before 
the war had lasted six months, British sloops would lie along 
American frigates with impunity. That idea was no longer 
broached. 

The Constitution, or " Old Ironsides," as she was affectionately 
called by the seamen, was in active service during the entire war. 
Cooper says that in two years and nine months she was in three 
actions, was twice critically chased, and that she captured five 
vessels-of-war, two of which were frigates, and a third was frigate- 
built. In all her service, as well before Tripoli as in this war, her 
good fortune was remarkable. She was never dismasted, never 



378 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1812. 




OLD IRONSIDES. 



got ashore, and scarcely ever suffered any of the usual accidents 
of the sea. Though so often in battle, no very serious slaughter 
took place on board her. One of her commanders was wounded, 

and four of her lieutenants 
were killed, two on her own 
decks, and two on the ene- 
my's ; but, on the whole, 
her entire career, was that 
of what is called in the 
navy a " lucky ship." Her 
good fortune may perhaps 
be explained by the simple 
fact that she was always 
well commanded ; more- 
over, in her last two cruises, 
she probably possessed as 
fine a crew as ever manned 
a frigate. They were principally New England men, and it was 
said of them, that they were almost qualified to fight the ship 
without her officers. 

October 13th, Captain Jacob Jones, commanding the Amer- 
ican schooner Wasp, fell in with the Frolic, convoying a squadron 
of British merchantmen. A severe engagement ensued. When 
the Americans boarded the enemy, they found the decks covered 
with the dead and wounded, while every man who was able had 
gone below, except an old seaman at the wheel. Not twenty per- 
sons remained unhurt. Lieutenant Biddle of the Wasp hauled 
down the Frolic's colors. A few hours after, however, the Poic- 
tiers, a British seventy-four gun ship, appeared and seized both 
the Wasp and her prize. 

Twelve days later, Captain Decatur, in the frigate United 
States, of forty-four guns, added to his laurels the capture of the 
Macedonian, carrying forty-nine guns. 

Another exploit of " Old Ironsides " closed the year. There 
being more officers than vessels, Captain Hull, in order to afford 
others an opportunity to share in the glory, magnanimously gave 
up the command of the Constitution to Commodore Bainbridge. 
Toward the close of December, off the coast of Brazil, he fell in 
with the British frigate Java, of thirty-eight guns. During the 
action of three hours, the superior gunnery of the Americans told 
fearfully. The Java, one of the best vessels in the British service, 






1813.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



379 



was reduced to a complete wreck ; not a spar was left standing ; 
one hundred and twenty -four of her crew were killed or 
wounded, among them her commander. When surrendered, the 
vessel was too shattered to be taken to port. The Constitution 
was slightly injured, and only thirty -four of her crew were killed 
or wounded. 

Besides these exploits of war vessels, privateersmen, fitted out 
under letters of marque, had done great damage to British com- 
merce, having captured, during the first seven months of the war, 
three hundred merchantmen and three thousand prisoners. 




CAPTURE OF THE FROLIC. 



Military operations on land during 1813 were scarcely less 
disastrous than they were the preceding year. Three armies 
were raised as before : that of the Centre, under General Dear- 
born, on the Niagara River ; that of the North, under General 
Hampton, along Lake Champlain ; and that of the West, under 
General Harrison. All three were ultimately to invade Canada. 
Proctor was the British general, and Tecumseh had command of 
the Indian allies. 

On the 25th of April, an expedition against York (now To- 
ronto) sailed from Sackett's Harbor. A landing was effected 
after a brisk skirmish, and the town gallantly assaulted. General 



3 8o 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813. 



Dearborn, being ill, had given the command to General Zebulon 
M. Pike, a brave and spirited young officer. After the cannon- 
ading of the enemy had been silenced, he was sitting upon a 
stump, expecting every moment to see a white flag displayed, 
when there was a sudden tremor of the ground, followed by a 
tremendous explosion. The enemy had blown up their powder 
magazine and fled. Forty of the English and one hundred Amer- 
icans were killed. General Pike was mortally wounded, but 
lived long enough to hear the victorious shouts of his men and to 
have the flag of the enemy placed under his dying head. 

Sackett's Harbor having been left in a defenceless situation, 
Sir George Prevost, Governor of Canada, led an expedition 
against it May 28th. General Jacob Brown, in command at the 



SAito- tMt 



m^ % 








sackett's harbor in 1814. 



Harbor, although he had but a day's notice, collected the militia, 
and was ready to give the assailants a warm reception. His 
artillery comprised only a thirty-two-pounder, called the " Old 
Sow." His troops were raw, and at first retreated, but he rallied 
them in person, and finally drove the English back to their boats. 
General Dearborn having resigned during the summer, General 
James Wilkinson succeeded to the command of the army of the 
Centre. It was planned that the army of the North, under Hamp- 
ton, should advance from Plattsburg and join him in making an 
attack on Montreal. Wilkinson with his men descended the St. 
Lawrence in a flotilla, and repulsed the enemy at Chrysler's Field, 
November nth; but Hampton would not move his forces, and 
ao the badly-managed expedition failed. Fort George, which was 
taken by Dearborn soon after the capture of York, was now evacu- 



1813.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 3&I 

ated, but not until Newark was laid in ashes. The British after- 
ward retaliated by burning Buffalo, Black Rock, and Lewiston. 

General Harrison, with the army of the West, was encamped at 
Franklinton, Ohio, a detachment under General Winchester being 
stationed at Fort Defiance, on the Maumee. Early in January, 
the latter went to the defence of the people of Frenchtown, on the 
river Raisin. He defeated the enemy, but was soon attacked by 
a body of fifteen hundred British and Indians under Proctor. 
During the battle, the Indians, in order to get the reward offered 
by the British commander, scalped the wounded and the dead 
alike. Winchester, being captured, agreed to the surrender of 
his men under the solemn promise that their lives and property 
should be safe. Proctor, however, immediately returned to 
Maiden with the British, leaving no guard over the American 
wounded. Thereupon the Indians, maddened by liquor and the 
desire of revenge, with faces painted black in token of their fiend- 
ish purposes, rushed into the village, mercilessly tomahawked 
many, set fire to the houses where others lay, and carried the sur- 
vivors to Detroit, where they were dragged through the streets 
and offered for sale at the doors of the inhabitants. Many of the 
women of that place gave for their ransom every article of value 
which they possessed. Among the prisoners was Captain Hart, 
a brother of Mrs. Henry Clay, who offered a friendly chief a hun- 
dred dollars if he would conduct him in safety to Maiden. He 
was accordingly placed on a horse, but had just started when a 
Wyandot claimed him as his prisoner. A quarrel ensued, which 
was settled by killing the captain and dividing his money and 
clothes between them ! Many of the troops were Kentuckians, 
and the massacre aroused the feelings of their comrades and friends 
almost to frenzy. Their rallying cry henceforth, " Remember the 
River Raisin ! " incited them to deeds of valor, and carried fear 
into the hearts and ranks of the enemy. 

General Harrison now erected Fort Meigs at the Maumee 
Rapids for the better protection of the northwest. Here he was 
besieged (May 1-5) by Proctor with a large force of regulars, and 
Indians under Tecumseh. Fortunately, General Clay, with twelve 
hundred Kentuckians, came to his rescue, and, after a severe con- 
test, raised the siege. The Indians treated their prisoners with 
their usual brutality. One day while two of the savages were in 
the act of murdering a helpless captive, Tecumseh darted into the 
midst, dashed the Indians to the ground, and rescued the unfor- 



382 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813. 



tunate man. He even dared to rebuke Proctor for his inhumanity, 
who replied that he could not restrain the Indians. " Go put on 
petticoats," answered the chief. " You are not fit to command 
men." 

Proctor, having returned to Maiden, made great preparations 
for a new invasion of Michigan. Harrison, apprised of his design, 
strengthened Fort Stephenson, at Lower Sandusky, for an attack. 
It was, however, only a stockade mounting a single six-pounder, 
with a small garrison under Major Croghan, a young man of but 
twenty-one. August ist, he was attacked by Proctor's troops 
sustained by gunboats in the rear. The British commander d^ 
manded instant surrender at the peril of a massacre. Crogha., 

replied that when the fort was taken 
a massacre would do no harm, as 
there would be no one to kill. Re- 
pulsed in a desperate assault, Proc- 
tor was forced to give up the siege. 
The exploits of our infant navy 
during this year added fresh lustre 
to that branch of the public service. 
On the 24th of February, Captain 
Lawrence, in command of the Hor- 
net, fell in with the British brig 
Peacock, near the mouth of the 
Demerara River. Within fifteen 
minutes, the Peacock struck her 
colors. She was already sinking, 
and, ere her crew could be rescued, the sea yawned and she 
sank out of sight, carrying with her three American and nine 
British sailors, victors and vanquished, to a common grave. Cap- 
tain Lawrence next took command of the Chesapeake, which 
on the 1 st of June was lying in the harbor of Boston. Cap- 
tain Broke, of the flag-ship Shannon, challenged him to come 
out and fight. Lawrence chivalrously accepted, although his 
ship had just returned from an unsuccessful cruise, and was 
looked upon as an " unlucky " vessel ; while part of his crew was 
discharged, and the rest, being unpaid, was half mutinous. 
Lawrence was mortally wounded early in the conflict. When 
carried below, he uttered those memorable words that will never 
be heard without stirring the pulse, " Dorit give tip the ship." But 
it was ordered otherwise. The English were already leaping on 




CAPTAIN LAWRENCE. 



1813.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 383 

the deck, and soon the cross of St. George was flying over the 
shattered prize. The Chesapeake was taken to Halifax. Law- 
rence died en route, and was there buried by his generous foe with 
the honors of war. His remains were subsequently brought to 
New York and interred in Trinity church-yard, where a monu- 
ment now stands to his memory. 

The schooner Adeline, commanded by Lieutenant Arthur 
Sinclair, off Lynn Haven Bay, sunk the British vessel Lottery 
early in the spring. In June, the United States brig Argus, 
under Captain Allen, having taken Mr. Crawford, our minister, to 
France, sailed on a cruise in British waters. She had captured 
twenty merchantmen when, on the 13th of August, she was over- 
taken by the English brig Pelican, and in less than half an hour, 
her captain being mortally wounded and her first lieutenant dis- 
abled, she was compelled to strike her colors. The next month, 
the British brig Boxer, off Portland, Maine, was captured by the 
American vessel Enterprise. Both captains being slain, they 
were taken ashore and buried with equal military honors. 

The cruise of Captain David Porter, in command of the Essex, 
was full of interest. He sailed from the Delaware on the 28th of 
October, 1812, and, having rounded Cape Horn, captured twelve 
ships and several hundred sailors, many of whom enlisted in his 
service. Several of the vessels he armed as tenders, forming a 
little fleet with which he protected our whaling interests in the 
Pacific. The Essex was finally attacked, however, on the 28th 
of March, 18 14, against all the laws of nations, in the neutral har- 
bor of Valparaiso, by a British frigate, the Phoebe, and the sloop- 
of-war Cherub. Being captured after one of the most desper- 
ately-fought battles of the war, Porter wrote back to the Depart- 
ment, " We are unfortunate, bu(. not disgraced." 

In this cruise David Glascoe Farragut, though only twelve 
years of age, sailed as a midshipman. Captain Porter, in his re- 
port of the first engagement, commended the " lad Farragut," 
and regretted that he was too young for promotion. 

The British were at this time masters of Lake Erie. To Oliver 
H. Perry, a young man of twenty-eight, was assigned the com- 
mand of the American fleet on the lake. His ships were many of 
them yet to be built, from trees still standing in the forest. By 
indomitable exertions, he got nine vessels carrying fifty-four guns 
ready for action. He had to wait some time even then for sailors 
enough to man his little fleet. In August, he >vas reinforced by 



384 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813. 



a company of marines from the Atlantic seaboard, many of them 
being sent to him overland in four-horse stage-coaches, via Albany 
and Buffalo. Perry now cruised about hoping to fall in with the 
British squadron under Barclay. 

On the ioth of September, the English fleet, consisting of six 
vessels bearing sixty-three guns, hove in sight. Perry ran to the 
masthead of his vessel, itself named the Lawrence, a banner 
on which were inscribed the words of that lamented hero, "Dorit 
give up the sJiip." Soon a bugle-note sounded from the Detroit, 
the British flag-ship, and the first gun was fired. The vessels ap- 
proached closer to each other, and the action soon became general. 
The Lawrence seemed to be singled out to bear the brunt of the 

English guns, and it was not 
long before she was terribly 
shattered, and her men nearly 
all killed or wounded. Perry 
with his flag then sprang into a 
small boat, and standing erect, 
the target for a score of guns, 
was rowed to the Niagara. 
This gallant feat history, art, 
and song will never weary of 
celebrating. Taking command 
of that vessel, he dashed upon 
the British line, and broke it, 
pouring such a storm of shot 
right and left, that within eight minutes the Detroit struck her 
colors, followed by all her consorts but two, which were taken 
soon after. With a touch of pardonable pride Perry went back to 
the Lawrence, and on her battle-stained deck received the sur- 
render. Here he wrote on the back of an old letter, resting it 
upon his navy cap, that memorable despatch to General Harrison : 




perry's headquarters. 



" We have met the enemy, and they are ours ; two ships, two 
brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. 

" Yours, with great respect and esteem, 

" O. H. Perry." 



The victory filled the Americans with joy, and the British with 
mortification. On both sides of the ocean it was made the subject 
of caricature at the expense of the British. It was the first time 



1813.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



385 



in the naval history of Great Britain that an entire squadron had 
surrendered. The memory of the event was kept fresh in the 
hearts of our countrymen for many years after by annual celebra- 
tions. Even to this day, a song, rude in versification but stirring 
in verse, commencing, 

" The tenth of September 

Let us all remember, 
As long as the world on its axis goes round, 

Our tars and marines 

On Lake Erie were seen, 
To make the proud flag of Great Britain come down," 



if sung or repeated in the pres- 
ence of any one living at that 
time, will revive the enthusiasm 





PERRY LEAVING THE LAWRENCE. 



that can never be forgotten. On Barclay's ship were found three 
Indians skulking below. It seems these sharpshooters had been 
placed in the round-tops to pick off the American officers. Be- 
fore they had a chance to display their skill, however, cannon-balls 
came whistling through the rigging, and the would-be heroes of 
the rifles descended to the deck. As the vessels neared, this post 
25 



3 86 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813. 



also became too warm ; and leaving the American officers to take 
care of themselves, they went down into the hold and remained 
there until brought out by their captors. " A pet bear, more 
courageous than the savages, was found enjoying itself on deck, 
lapping up the blood of the fallen." 



Johnny.urorityouhke some ntorp^= 
?erry? *&& 



fe~ Oh! Terry llLGimtiutTbrrtfl 

—One disaster after another— J have 

Shave not half recovrrrdoftheBlmig-rwse 
the Boxing Jflaic' ' 




3ueen Charlotte and Johnny But/ jot their dose of IFerru. 



A CARICATURE OF THE TIME. 



After the battle, the Lawrence was towed over to Misery Bay, 
her birth-place, remaining there, a monument of the celebrated 
victory, until 1815, when she sunk at her anchors. After she had 
lain for about fifty years, an attempt was made to raise her, 
which failed; but in 1875, a company of gentlemen purchased the 
vessel, and, on the 14th of September of that year, succeeded in 
bringing the old ship to the surface, amidst the plaudits of the 
crowd who had repaired to the spot to greet the heroic craft 
which had once so nobly carried our flag. She was transported 
to Philadelphia, in order to be exhibited at the Exposition. 

This victory virtually put an end to the war. It led to the 
speedy destruction of the Indian Confederacy ; relieved the whole 
region of the most gloomy forebodings of evil ; enabled Harrison 
to repossess the lost territory ; wiped out the disgrace of Hull's 
misfortune, and led the way to the invasion of Canada. 

Washington Irving, in a sketch of Perry written soon after, 
said : " The last roar of cannon that died along the shores of Erie 
was the expiring note of British domination. Those vast interna 1 



1813.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



387 




OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. 



seas will, perhaps, never again be the separating space between 
contending nations ; and this victory, which decided their fate, 
will stand unrivaled and alone, deriving lustre and perpetuity 
from its singleness. In fut- 
ure times, when the shores 
of Erie shall hum with a busy 
population ; when towns and 
cities shall brighten where 
now extend the dark and 
tangled forests ; when ports 
shall spread their arms, and 
lofty barks shall ride where 
now the canoe is fastened to 
the stake ; when the present 
age shall have grown into 
venerable antiquity, and the 
mists of fable begin to gather 
round its history, then will 
the inhabitants look back to 
this battle we record, as one 
of the romantic achievements 
of the days of yore. It will stand first on the page of their local 
legends, and in the marvelous tales of the border." 

General Harrison did not long wait to gather up the fruits of 
the victory. Early in October, he started, with a large force of 
Kentuckians under Governor Shelby, in pursuit of Proctor, who 
was rapidly fleeing along Lake St. Clair, with the hope of 
joining the British on Burlington Heights, at the head of Lake 
Ontario. Tecumseh denounced the British commander as a 
" squaw " for thus running away, and threatened to desert him. 
Proctor at last took a stand in a strong position on the River 
Thames. Harrison, perceiving that he had weakened his line by 
extending it too far, ordered Colonel Johnson to break it by a 
charge of his cavalry. The Kentucky horsemen dashed forward, 
and in less than five minutes after the first shot was fired had 
routed the enemy. Proctor escaped in his carriage, and within 
twenty-four hours was sixty miles away. The Indians, hidden in 
a swamp, continued the struggle. Tecumseh long animated his 
warriors with his own desperate valor. At last, struck by a ball, 
he calmly stepped forward, and, sinking at the foot of an oak, 
died. His followers, appalled at their loss, fled in dismay. 



3 88 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813-14. 



If we can believe a vulgar couplet, which is now and then at 
this date heard on the street or in the school-yard, running, 

" Rumpsey, Dumpsey, hickory Crumpsey, 
Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh," 

the hcnor of his death belongs to that brave Kentuckian. 

During the summer of 1813, the Indians of Georgia and Ala- 
bama, incited by the British and Spanish authorities, and also 
by Tecumseh's project of a great Indian Con- 
federacy, took up arms. Troops under the 
command of Andrew Jackson were sent 
against them. On the 30th of August, the 
savages had surprised Fort Mimms, forty 
miles north of Mobile, and massacred nearly 
three hundred persons. Volunteers now 
flocked in from all the adjoining States to 
avenge this horrid deed. General 
Floyd, with the Georgia militia, 
defeated the Indians at Callabee 
and Autossee, the Creek metrop- 
olis, where the very ground was 
sacred. General Coffee routed 
them at Tallushatchee, and Jack- 
son, a few days after, at Talladega. Claiborne, with the Missis- 
sippi troops, captured Eccanachaca, " Holy Ground," which 
they considered an impregnable stronghold. The next spring the 
Creeks made their last rally at " Tohopeka," or the " Horseshoe 
Bend," on the Tallapoosa River. Six hundred of the Indians 
were killed, and the remainder were glad to sue for peace. 

The speech of their chief prophet and warrior, Weatherford, 
on his surrender, deserves to be perpetuated with the utterances 
of other distinguished men of this unfortunate people. " I am," 
said he, " in your power. Do with me as you please. I am a 
soldier. I have done the white people all the harm I could. I 
have fought them, and fought them bravely. If I had an army, I 
would yet fight and contend to the last. But I have none. My 
people are all gone. I can now do no more than weep over the 
misfortunes of my nation. Once I could animate my warriors to 
battle ; but I cannot animate the dead. My warriors can no 
longer hear my voice. Their bones are at Talladega, Tallus- 
hatchee, and Tohopeka. I have not surrendered myself thought- 




SOUTHERN 

REGION OF THE WAR 

1812-1814 



1813.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



389 



lessly. Whilst there were chances for success, I never left my 
post, nor supplicated peace. But my people are gone ; and I 
now ask it for my nation and for myself." 

Several incidents of this brief campaign strikingly illustrate 
Jackson's character. On the field at Talladega, he was touched 
by the cry of an Indian babe, whose mother had died in the battle. 
He tried to induce some mother among the prisoners to take care 
of it. " Its mother is dead," was the cold answer; " let the child 
die too." The general, himself a childless man, then turned 
nurse. Some brown sugar formed a part of his private stores, 
and with this he 
caused the child /Jijji ||||JfMl 
to be fed. The in- 
fant throve on this 
simple fare, and 
he finally took it 
home with him, 
and reared it up in 
his own family. 

During the win- 
ter the troops un- 
der his command 
suffered much 
from hunger. One 
day a starving sol- 
dier asked the 
general for some- 
thing to eat. " I will divide with you," was the reply, as he drew 
out of his pocket a handful of acorns. At last the soldiers 
could endure their privations no longer, and they mutinied. 
Jackson rode down the ranks. His left arm, shattered by a ball, 
was disabled, but in his right he held a musket. Sternly ordering 
the men back to their place, he declared he would shoot the first 
who advanced. No one stirred, and at last all returned to duty. 

Early in the spring, the British commenced devastating the 
southern coast. Admiral Cockburn, especially, disgraced the 
British navy by conduct worse than that of Cornwallis in the 
Revolution. Along the shores of Virginia and Carolina, he 
burned bridges, farm-houses, and villages ; robbed the inhabitants 
of their crops, stock, and slaves; plundered churches of their 
communion services, and murdered the sick in their beds. 




WEATHERFORD IN JACKSON S TENT. 



390 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1813. 



Neither age nor sex was spared by these pirates in British uni- 
form. Frenchtown, Georgetown, Havre de Grace, and Freder- 
ickstown were wantonly destroyed. 

The New England coast, though closely blockaded, was spared 
any attack, from a general belief that it would yet return to its 
allegiance to Great Britain. The bitter opposition there felt to 
the war was signally exhibited, when the Hornet beat the Pea- 
cock, in the following resolution, which was adopted by the 
°enate of Massachusetts, on the motion of Mr. Quincy, June 15, 
1 81 3 : "Resolved, as the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that, 
in a war like the present, waged without a justifiable cause, and 




the attack ON oswego. — From an old Print. 



prosecuted in a manner that indicates that conquest and ambition 
are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious 
people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits 
which are not immediately connected with the defence of our sea- 
coast and soil." Another curious incident occurred in this con- 
nection. Decatur lay, with three vessels, in the harbor of New 
London, anxious to escape through the blockading squadron. 
Whenever he made an attempt, however, no matter with how 
great secrecy, just at that time blue lights were sure to be seen 
burning on the bank of the River Thames. Decatur believed 
them to be warning signals to the enemy, and dared not put out 
to sea. The Federal party had to bear the odium of this traitor- 



1814.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 391 

ous act, and for a quarter of a century afterward its members 
were stigmatized with the epithet of " Blue-Light Federalists." 

During the year 1814, the war was prosecuted with renewed 
vigor on both sides. The peace of Paris had released the British 
fleets and armies so long employed against Napoleon, and left the 
English at liberty to direct their entire strength against the United 
States. Fourteen thousand veterans who had fought under Wei- 
lington were sent to Canada. 

The summer campaign opened with the capture by the British 
of the fort at Oswego, although it was stubbornly and bravely de- 
fended by its commander, Colonel Mitchell. May 5th, the town 
was bombarded, and a fruitless attempt made to land. The next 
day the effort was renewed successfully. Mitchell thereupon 
abandoned the fort, which mounted only five guns, and after an- 
noying the English as much as he could, he retreated to Oswego 
Falls. Having dismantled the works and burned the barracks, 
the enemy retired. 

July 3d, our army, under Generals Brown, Ripley, and Scott, 
crossed Niagara River, and captured Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo. 
Two days after, they defeated the British under General Riall at 
Chippewa, the English loss being nearly double the American. 
Just before the final charge, General Scott addressed his men as 
follows : " The enemy say that the Americans are good at a long 
shot, but can not stand the cold iron. I call upon you instantly 
to give the lie to the slander. Charge ! " 

On the 25th, another engagement took place near Lundy's 
Lane, a highway running from the Niagara River to the head of 
Lake Ontario, and opposite Niagara Falls. Our force was less 
than three thousand, while the British numbered nearly five thou- 
sand. General Scott, being in the advance, began the attack about 
four o'clock in the afternoon, and stubbornly held his ground till 
reinforcements arrived. Major Jessup turned the enemy's flank, 
and amid the gathering darkness picked up so many prisoners, 
among them General Riall, as to impede his progress. Brown, 
seeing that a battery stationed on the hill near by was the key to 
the British position, turned to Colonel James Miller and said, " Sir, 
can you take that battery ? " "I will try'' he replied. " Close up, 
steady, men," was his only command to the gallant twenty-first, 
as it moved forward up the hill, and captured the guns, amid 
cheers that were heard above the roar of the mighty cataract. 
Night had already come, yet the British made three desperate 



39 2 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1814 



assaults to recover the position. The men whom Wellington had 
so often led to victory were fairly driven back each time, and 
at last could not be rallied for another struggle. The Americans, 
however, gained no substantial benefits from this success. Scott 
and Brown being wounded, General Ripley retreated to Fort 
Erie. General Gaines now took command. He was assaulted 
by the British August 15th, Colonel Drummond leading the at- 




COLONEL MILLER AT LUNDY S LANE. 



tacking corps with the cry " Give the Yankees no quarter! " The 
colonel was shot, and his men fled. A fierce sortie by the garrison, 
September 17th, finally broke up the siege, and the British retired 
behind their entrenchments at Chippewa. The American army, 
having destroyed Fort Erie, went into winter-quarters at Buffalo, 
thus closing this brilliant campaign. 

We turn now to the army of the East. The British had 
here attempted to revive the plan of Burgoyne's famous cam- 
paign. The army of invasion consisted of fourteen thousand men 
under Sir George Prevost and a fleet of four armed vessels and 
thirteen gunboats under Commodore Downie. General Macomb 
and Commodore McDonough were in command of our land and 
naval forces at Plattsburg. The Americans retired across the 
Saranac on the approach of the enemy. On Sunday morning 
September nth, they were attacked by land and water. 



1814.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



393 



In the solemn hush before the battle, McDonough 
hands on deck and read to them 
the Episcopal service. The im- 
pressiveness of the occasion added 
a strength and beauty to the noble 
liturgy. A man who dared, in the 
navy of that day, to perform such 
an act, was surely worthy to lead. 

The struggle raged for two 
hours, when McDonough adopted 
the difficult expedient of wearing 
his vessel around, so as to present a 
fresh broadside to the enemy. The 
English tried the same manoeuvre, 
but failed. The battle was then 
soon decided. The British com- 
modore was killed, his guns were 
silenced, and his larger vessels cap- 
tured. Scarce a spar was standing 
in either fleet, and the ships were 
ready to sink. Meanwhile the 
English land forces had suffered 
defeat, and about dark they re- 
treated. Thus ended the invasion, 
not less successfully for us, but less 
disastrously for the English than 
did its Revolutionary compeer. 

The operations of Admiral 
Cockburn, with his worthy asso- 
ciate, General Ross, were con- 
tinued this year along the coast. 
In August, General Ross ascended 
the Potomac to Washington. An 
attempt was made to stop him at 
Bladensburg, but our troops, under 
General Winder, fled disgracefully. 
The day was hot, and the British 
were in no condition to pursue. 
The Americans lost during the re- 
treat only one man — an officer — 
who, it is said, ran till he died. 



piped all 




394 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. 



[1814. 



The " Bladensburg Races" as the battle was satirically styled, 
left the way open to the capital. 

The President was on the field, and sent his servant to warn 
Mrs. Madison of her danger. She resolved to save the full-length 
portrait of Washington which now adorns the blue-room of the 
White House. It was cut out of its frame and borne away by 
the gentlemen. So precipitate was her flight, that a dinner-table 
was left spread for forty guests. Unexpected ones occupied it. 
They were hungry Britons. 

The principal British officers entered the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and Cockburn took the chair. " Gentlemen," he cried, 




BRITISH SOLDIERS BURNING BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



" the question is, Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be 
burned ? All in favor of burning it will say, Aye ! " The re- 
sponse was in the affirmative, and there was no negative. " Light 
up," said he, and the work of destruction was commenced. In 
the course of a few hours, nothing remained of the splendid Cap- 
itol and the presidential mansion but their smoke-blackened walls. 
Two million dollars worth of property is said to have been de- 
stroyed during this incursion, disgraceful alike to America and 
England. 

The British now sailed around by sea to attack Baltimore. 
The fleet bombarded Fort McHenry, while the land forces were 
to move upon the city. In both of these attempts the enemy was 
unsuccessful. During the bombardment, Francis S. Key, who 



1814.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 395 

had gone to the British fleet with a flag of truce to procure the 
release of a friend, and who was not permitted to return lest he 
might carry back valuable information, watched the flag of his 
country waving above Fort McHenry. The British commander 
had boasted to Key that the place could hold out only a few hours, 
and then Baltimore must inevitably fall into his hands. The next 
morning the flag was still waving defiantly and triumphantly in 
the face of the foe. The incident inspired Key to write the words 
of a song which will be sung as long as the flag is known : 

" Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? 
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ; 
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? " 

The harbor of Stonington, Conn., was in like manner bom- 
barded by the enemy, but, the militia assembling, no landing was 
effected by the British troops. During nearly the whole of the 
year, also, that part of Maine which lies east of the Penobscot 
River was occupied by the English. The United States frigate 
Adams, and many merchant vessels lying in the Penobscot were 
destroyed or fell into their hands. 

A convention held at Hartford, December 15th, excited great 
attention. It was composed of delegates from the New England 
States. Its deliberations were secret, and were supposed to be 
disloyal, so that nearly every member was henceforth excluded 
from all political position in the nation. Indeed, it became one 
of the chief causes of the ruin of the Federal party. A report 
was current at the time that there would be an attempt to take 
New England out of the Union and establish a kingdom. It is 
now known, however, that the convention only considered cer- 
tain alleged usurpations by the general government, several 
amendments to the Constitution, and the defence of the eastern 
coast against the attacks of the British navy, then becoming so 
threatening. The convention adjourned, having recommended 
the call of a second the ensuing year. What would have been the 
result of these deliberations cannot be known, as peace put a 
practical stop to all anti-war measures and removed their worst 
grievances. 



396 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1814. 

November 13th, Elbridge Gerry, the Vice-President, expired 
suddenly in his carriage while proceeding to the Capitol. He 
died honorably poor and was universally mourned. John Gail- 
lard of South Carolina was appointed President of the Senate. 

The treaty of peace was signed by the commissioners at Ghent 
on the 24th of December, 18 14. It did not settle the great ques- 
tion of the war, viz., the impressing of seamen, but there was a 
tacit understanding, and it was never revived. The news did 
not reach this country until the following February. Meanwhile 
had occurred one of the most brilliant victories ever achieved by 
the American arms. 

During the year 18 14, General Andrew Jackson, after subdu- 
ing the Creek Indians, was engaged in Florida settling affairs 
with the Spanish authorities, who had been suspected of co- 
operating with the British in urging the Indians to war and 
furnishing them with arms and ammunition. He captured Pensa- 
cola and drove from its harbor a British fleet. Learning that the 
English would next attack New Orleans, he proceeded to that 
city and made the most vigorous preparations for its defence. 

December 14th, the expected British fleet entered Lake 
Borgne and captured the American gun-boats stationed at that 
point. Thence, passing through an unfrequented bayou nearly to 
the Mississippi, the advance reached the river only nine miles 
from the city. That night Jackson bravely attacked the enemy 
in their camp, but was repulsed. The next day he fell back 
behind his entrenchments, which extended from the river to an 
impassable swamp. An assault on the 28th having failed, the 
British brought up cannon and planted several batteries. Their 
fire, however, produced little effect.. In throwing up their works, 
the British had used hogsheads of sugar instead of sand-bags, but 
the American balls quickly broke them in pieces. On the other 
hand, Jackson at first made his entrenchments partly of cotton 
bales, but a red-hot cannon-ball having fired the cotton and scat- 
tered the burning fragments among the barrels of gunpowder, it 
was found necessary to remove the cotton entirely. The only 
defence of the Americans in the ensuing battle was a bank ol 
earth five feet high, and a ditch filled with water. 

January 8th, General Pakenham, the commander-in-chief ol 
the British, advanced with his whole force, twelve thousand strong. 
Behind their breastworks, three thousand Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky riflemen, the finest marksmen in the world, were awaiting 



1815.] 



MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



397 



his coming. When within range, a vivid stream of fire flashed 
from the whole American line. Every shot told. The enemy 
was thrown into confusion, and the plain was strewn with the 
dead and dying. In the vain attempt to rally his troops, General 
Pakenham was killed, General Gibbs, the second in command, 
was mortally and General Keene severely wounded. General 
Lambert, on whom the command devolved, being unable to check 
the flight of his troops, retired to his encampment, and ten days 




-%2F%s/% ; 



THE BA1TLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 



afterward the whole army hastily withdrew to their ships. The 
British had lost over two thousand men, and the Americans but 
thirteen. 

During the attack on Jackson's lines, the British had carried 
an American battery on the right bank of the river, which com- 
manded the American position and gave them virtual control of 
New Orleans ; but the defeat of the main body had been so signal 
that they made no effort to pursue their success. 

A cable despatch would have saved this fearful bloodshed. 
" O tardy science ! " exclaims Parton, in his Life of Jackson ; " O 
Morse, O Cyrus Field, why were you not ready with your 
oceanic telegraph then, to tell those men of both armies that they 



398 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1815. 

were not enemies, but friends and brothers, and send them joyful 
into each other's arms, not in madness against each other's arms ? 
The ship that bore this blessed news was still in mid-ocean, con- 
tending with its wintry winds and waves. How much would 
have gone differently in our history if those tidings had arrived a 
few weeks sooner ! " 

An incident showing the stern justice and the rugged charac- 
ter of General Jackson occurred soon after. A member of the 
legislature, on the ioth of February, caused it to be stated in the 
Louisiana Gazette that peace had been declared. Jackson arrested 
him, charging that this statement excited mutiny among the sol- 
diers. A writ of habeas corpus having been granted the prisoner 
by Judge Hall, Jackson, instead of obeying the writ, arrested the 
judge and sent him out of the city. On being restored to his 
office, the judge ordered Jackson to appear and show cause why 
he should not be committed for contempt in disregarding the writ. 
General Jackson came in citizen's garb before the court, and being 
fined one thousand dollars, paid it. It was, however, subsequently 
refunded to him by the government, with interest. 

The last two naval actions of the war were in our favor. 
These were the capture in February, 1815, by the frigate Consti- 
tution, of two British sloops-of-war, the Cyane and Levant, off 
the island of Madeira, and in March, by the Hornet, of the brig 
Penguin off the coast of Brazil. " Thus terminated at sea," says 
Alison, the British historian, " this memorable contest, in which 
the English, for the first time for a century and a half, met with 
equal antagonists on their own element ; and in recounting which 
the British historian, at a loss whether to admire most the 
devoted heroism of his own countrymen or the gallant bearing of 
their antagonists, feels almost equally warmed in narrating either 
side of the strife." 

The Americans who were captured during the war, and 
impressed seamen who refused to serve in the British navy, had 
been kept at Dartmoor, a prison situated on a lonesome moor not 
far from Portsmouth, England. They were treated with great 
rigor. Their sufferings, especially during the severe winter of 
181 3-14, were bitter. Headley says that the stream running 
through the prison-yard and the buckets of water in the rooms, 
were frozen solid. Most of the prisoners, being protected only 
by rags and destitute of shoes, could not go out into the yard at 
all, as it was covered with snow several feet deep, but lay 



1815-16.] MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 399 

crouched in their hammocks day and night. The strong were 
bowed in gloom and despair, and the weak perished in protracted 
agonies. To fill the measure of their sufferings, the commanding 
officer issued an order compelling them to turn out at nine 
o'clock in the morning and remain in the open air till the guard 
counted them. This took nearly an hour, during which time the 
poor fellows stood barefoot in the snow, benumbed by the cold, 
and pierced by the bleak wind. Unable to bear this dreadful 
exposure, the prisoners cut up their bedding, to make garments 
and socks for themselves, and slept on the cold floor. Morning 
after morning, hardy men, benumbed by the cold, fell lifeless in 
the presence of their keepers. Peace came, but these suffering 
men were not released. Restless and uneasy, collisions began to 
occur with their brutal keepers. April 4, 181 5, they received no 
bread. The next day they broke into the depot of supplies. On 
the 6th, the guard fired upon them repeated volleys, killing seven 
and wounding sixty of these unarmed men. This " Dartmoor mas- 
sacre " for a time threatened to renew hostilities between the two 
countries, but the matter was finally amicably settled. 

The Barbary States had taken advantage of the war to renew 
their piratical depredations. Decatur, being sent thither with a 
squadron, captured the largest vessel in the Algerine navy, vis- 
ited Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli in succession, and compelled the 
release of our prisoners ; exacted payment for the losses we had 
already sustained, and the relinquishment of all demands for trib- 
ute in future. Since then we have had no trouble with the Bar- 
bary pirates. 

Peace found the country in a deplorable condition — trade 
ruined, commerce gone, no specie, banks without credit, and a 
general depression. Yet, such were the resources of the country, 
that it almost immediately entered on a career of unexampled 
prosperity. Cotton rose from ten to over twenty cents per 
pound. Soon the ocean was whitened with the sails of our ships. 
Land rapidly increased in value. Explorations, especially con- 
nected with the fur trade, were pushed at the northwest. Emi- 
gration multiplied. In 18 16, the United States Bank was 
rechartered to continue for twenty years, and an act was passed 
providing for paying the national debt, over one hundred and 
twenty million dollars, by annual instalments of ten million 
dollars. 

The Federal party was now almost entirely broken up by its 



400 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1816-17. 

opposition to the war. Rufus King, its candidate for the Presi- 
dency, received only thirty-four votes. The Republicans nomi- 
nated James Monroe, with Daniel D. Tompkins as Vice-President. 
They were elected by one hundred and eighty-three votes. 

December u, 1816, Indiana was admitted to the Union, form- 
ing the nineteenth State. It well merits the name given it, as 
within its borders were fought many of the most desperate and 
decisive Indian battles. As early as 1702, some French Cana- 
dians descended the Wabash River, establishing several posts, 
Vincennes being among them. Little is known, however, of the 
early history of the country until 1763, when it was ceded to the 
English. It formed a part of the great Northwest Territory. 
When Ohio was set off in 1800, the remainder was called Indiana. 
In 1805, Michigan was carved from it ; and in 1809, Illinois. 

President Monroe was inaugurated March 4, 181 7. He was 
born in Westmoreland county, Va., April 28, 1758. From early 
manhood he had mingled in the public affairs of the country, 
his life being a portion of its history from the commencement 
of the War of the Revolution. He had been the friend and 
adviser of Jefferson and Madison, and possessed the entire confi- 
dence of the people. He was tall and well-formed, with light 
complexion and blue eyes. He was laborious and industrious in 
his habits, though by no means brilliant. 

In the selection of his Cabinet, Monroe showed excellent 
judgment, taking for his advisers men of commanding ability and 
the widest influence. They aided largely in giving to his admin- 
istration a character which rendered it " the golden age " of our 
political history. The Secretary of State was John Quincy 
Adams, a master of diplomacy, who had grown up in this field, 
having been representative at the Hague when so young that he 
was called " General Washington's Boy Minister." The Secre- 
tary of the Treasury was William H. Crawford of Georgia, a man 
of commanding appearance, brilliant talents, and sterling patriot- 
ism. The Secretary of War was John C. Calhoun, one of Amer- 
ica's greatest statesmen. The Secretary of the Navy was Ben- 
jamin W. Crowinshield of Massachusetts who was succeeded by 
Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey, the youngest man ever ap- 
pointed to a place in the Cabinet, being only twenty-nine years 
of age, but full of promise, thoroughly accomplished, and the 
pride of his native State. 

For his legal adviser, the President had the distinguished Wil- 



1817-20.] MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 401 

liam Wirt, who was as clear-minded and sound-hearted in council 
as he was brilliant in the forum. Outside the cabinet, the admin- 
istration possessed such supporters as Daniel D. Tompkins, Vice- 
President ; John Marshall, Chief-Justice ; and Henry Clay, Speaker 
of the House. 

Soon after his inauguration, Monroe, imitating the example of 
Washington, made his memorable journey through the Northern 
States to examine the military posts, and acquire a thorough ac- 
quaintance with the capabilities of the country in case of future 
hostilities. He wore the uniform of a colonel of the Revolution- 
ary army — three-cornered hat, scarlet-bordered blue coat, and 
buff breeches. He was everywhere received with consideration 
and cordiality, and in many places with enthusiasm and great 
civic and military displays. His simple dignity of manner, and 
his evident sincerity of purpose, rendered him popular with all. 
" Embittered and hot-tempered leaders of parties, who for the last 
seven years had hardly deigned to speak to each other, or even to 
walk on the same side of the street, met now with smiling faces, 
vying in extravagance of republican loyalty. The ' era of good 
feeling ' having thus begun, the way was rapidly paved for that 
complete amalgamation of parties which took place a few years 
after." 

During the first twenty years of the present century, there 
was hardly a branch of industry or a valuable interest that did 
not receive an impulse. The war had led to the establishment of 
extensive manufactories to supply the place of the English goods 
cut off by the blockade. These continued to thrive after peace 
was declared, though trade was for a time depressed by the quan- 
tity of foreign goods thrown on the market. The feeling of the 
people was well expressed by Henry Clay on the Senate floor, in 
his memorable speech, April 6, 18 10, where he first took ground 
in favor of protecting the interests of American manufactures : 
" There is a pleasure, a pride," said he, " (if I may be allowed the 
expression, and I pity those who cannot feel the sentiment), in 
being clad in the productions of our own family. Others may 
prefer the cloths of Leeds or London, but give me those of Hum- 
phreysville." While speaking, he was clothed in the product of 
an American loom. 

Almost every State saw the institution of colleges and univer- 
sities. Among these were the University of Georgia, established 
in 1 801 ; Washington College, Pennsylvania, 1802 ; Ohio Univer- 
26 



402 



AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1800-1820. 



sity, 1804; University of South Carolina, 1806; Hamilton College, 
New York, 1812; University of Virginia, of which Jefferson was 
proud to be called the father, 1819; and Madison University, New 
York, and Colby University, Maine, 1820. In 1821, a school for 

the education of women 
was established in Troy, 
N. Y., by Mrs. Emma Wil- 
lard. It was a pioneer 
institution, and its re- 
markable success placed 
its founder foremost 
among the teachers of the 
country and the benefac- 
tors of her sex. 

In the year 1806, five 
students at Williams Col- 
lege (Samuel J. Mills, 
Jas. Richards, Francis L. 
Robbins, Harvey Loomis, 
and Bryan Greene), being 
in a grove, where they had 
met for meditation and 
prayer, were driven by 
a sudden storm to the 
friendly shelter of a hay- 
stack. Here, in their con- 
versation, came up the 
subject of the moral condition of Asia, in which country they 
were interested from being engaged in the study of its geography. 
Mills suggested the idea of carrying the Gospel to the people of 
that vast region. His companions favoring the notion, they joined 
in prayer and sung a hymn. Soon after, they formed in the col- 
lege the first Foreign Missionary Society ever organized in 
America. Delegates were sent to other colleges to kindle the 
same spirit, and in four years after that " Haystack prayer-meet- 
ing," the American Board of Foreign Missions was established. 

The American Bible Society had its origin in 18 16. On the 
8th of May, sixty gentlemen met in the Consistory Room of the 
Reformed Dutch Church in Garden Street, New York, and re- 
solved that " it is expedient, without delay, to establish a general 
Bible Institution for the circulation of the Holy Scriptures with- 




1800-1820.] MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 403 

out note or comment." Many of the most distinguished clergy- 
men of the day were present at the birth of the society, and lived 
to see it fulfil its important work. 

Benjamin Lundy, in 181 5, founded an anti-slavery association, 
called the " Union Humane Society," and afterward started a 
newspaper, "The Genius of Universal Emancipation." He was 
the originator of anti-slavery periodicals and lectures. 

The first savings bank was established in Philadelphia, No- 
vember 1 8 16. Others were soon put in operation in every city of 
the Union. Besides the accumulation of savings, they taught the 
people thrift and economy, and so have been of great service. 

In 1819, the Savannah, a steamer of three hundred and fifty tons 
burden, crossed the Atlantic, making the passage in thirty-one 
days. She was heavily sparred, and depended largely upon her 
sails, yet the voyage marked the commencement of a new era in 
navigation. 

In 1795, after the admission of Vermont and Kentucky, the 
number of stripes in the American flag had been increased to 
fifteen. This was the form used during the War of 181 2-14. 
April 4, 181 8, a bill was approved reducing the stripes to thirteen, 
and making the number of stars equal to that of the States, a new 
one to be added for every new State, on the 4th of July succeed- 
ing its admission. On the 13th of April the qew flag was first 
hoisted over the Hall of Representatives in Washington. 

The Seminole Indians having committed many depredations, 
General Jackson was sent against them with a force of two thou- 
sand five hundred men. He burned their villages, marched into 
Florida, then held by Spain, and took possession of Pensacola. 
Two traders, Arbuthnot, a Scotchman, and Ambrister, a British 
lieutenant of marines, were arrested for inciting the savages to 
hostility. They were tried by court-martial, and, being found 
guilty, the former was hanged and the latter was shot. Jackson 
also hanged two prominent Indian chiefs. The Spanish authori- 
ties complained of his conduct, and it was made the subject of 
congressional inquiry, but his course was approved by large 
majorities in both Houses. 

The execution of these two British subjects produced intense 
excitement in England. There was great apprehension of a third 
war with the United States. Stocks fell. The Federal govern- 
ment was bitterly denounced. Jackson was declared to be a 
" tyrant, ruffian, and murderer," and was thus placarded through 



404 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1817-19. 

the streets of London. The journals, without distinction of party, 
swelled the general chorus. But in the midst of this din of pas- 
sion, the ministry, perceiving the justice of Jackson's course, 
stood firm. " At a later day of my mission," remarked Rush, 
then our representative at the English court, " Lord Castlereagh 
said to me that a war might have been produced on this occasion, 
' if the ministry had but held up a finger.' On so slender a thread do 
public affairs sometimes hang ! " 

In February, 1819, a treaty was concluded with Spain, by which 
she ceded Florida to the United States on the payment of five 
million dollars. 

Four new States were received into the Union during Monroe's 
first term. Mississippi was admitted December 10, 1817. It is 
named from the Mississippi River, the " Great Father of Waters." 
The State was first settled by the French in 17 16, but in 1763 was 
ceded to Great Britain, and became a part of Georgia. It was 
organized as a Territory in 1798. 

Illinois, the twenty-first State, was admitted December 3, 18 18. 
Its name is derived from its principal river, signifying " River of 
men." After Ohio and Indiana and the Territory of Michigan 
had been taken from the Northwest Territory, the remainder was 
styled the Illinois Territory, and comprised the present States of 
Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. Its first permanent 
settlement was made by the French at Kaskaskia in 1682. It came 
to the English from the French in 1763, and to the United States 
in 1787, with the rest of the Northwestern Territory. Previous to 
this there had been a fort on the present site of Chicago, as ap- 
pears from a map published in Quebec, 1683. The fort was styled 
Checagou, an Indian name derived from Cheecaqua — strong — 
the title of a line of chiefs, and also of an onion which grows on the 
river banks. Fort Dearborn was built by the United States in 
1804. Here occurred, during the war of 181 2-14, the Indian mas- 
sacre already mentioned. The fort was then burned, but was re- 
built in 1 8 16, and was garrisoned until the red men moved beyond 
the Mississippi. For years after the admission of the State, this 
great metropolis was only a trading-station surrounded by the 
wigwams of the savages. 

Alabama, the twenty-second State, was received December 
14, 1 8 19. Its name signifies " Here we rest." The early history 
of this region is interwoven with that of French discovery. The 
first settlement was made in 1702, when a party of Frenchmen, 



1820.] 



MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



405 



under Bienville, built a fort 
on Mobile Bay. The pres- 
ent site of Mobile was oc- 
cupied in 171 1, the place 
having been an Indian vil- 
lage called Mavilla, and the 
scene of De Soto's most dis- 
astrous defeat. Having been 
ceded to the United States, 
Alabama was first incorpo- 
rated with Georgia, and 
afterward with the Missis- 
sippi Territory. 

Maine was admitted 
March 15, 1820. The Eng- 
lish under Cabot, in 1498, 
the French under Verrazani, 
in 1524, and the Spaniards 
under Gomez, in 1525, arc 
known to have made cur- 
sory visits to this region. 
In 1623, a permanent set- 
tlement was made at the 
mouth of the Piscataqua by 
a colony under Sir Ferdi- 
nand Gorges and Captain 
John Mason, which was fol- 
lowed by others at Saco, 
Biddeford, Scarborough, 
Cape Elizabeth, and Port- 
land. Massachusetts claimed 
this territory, and in 1677, 
to secure it, bought out the 
rights of the heirs of Gorges 
for six thousand two hun- 
dred and fifty dollars. Nova 
Scotia formed a portion of 
the purchase, but this was 
relinquished, the remainder 
being held until separated 
in 1820. 




406 AMERICAN NATIONALITY ASSURED. [1818-20. 

Party strife having lulled, the " era of good feeling " was sig- 
nalized by the re-election of Monroe by the vote of every State in 
the Union. Daniel D. Tompkins was also again chosen Vice- 
President. With all this satisfactory condition of the present 
and brilliant promise for the future, that same year an apple of 
discord was cast into the politics of the country, the effect of 
which was felt for more than half a century. In March, 1818, a 
petition was presented to Congress from the Territory of Mis- 
souri, asking authority to form a constitution for a State. It was 
not acted upon at that session, but in February, 18 19, Mr. Tall- 
madge, a Republican of New York, moved an amendment prohib- 
iting the further introduction of slavery into the new State. A 
fierce debate of three days followed. The spirit exhibited is well 
illustrated by the remarks of two members. Mr. Cobb of Georgia 
said : " A fire has been kindled which all the waters of the ocean 
cannot put out, and which only seas of blood can extinguish." 
To which Mr. Tallmadge replied : " If civil war, which gentlemen 
so much threaten, must come, I can only say let it come ! . . . 
If blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted 
to kindle, while I regret the necessity, I shall not hesitate to con- 
tribute my own." The Senate struck out the amendment, and 
the measure was lost. 

The next year, a bill having been introduced for the admission 
of Maine, a clause was adroitly attached authorizing Missouri to 
form a constitution without restrictions. They were separated, 
and on the 3d of March following both passed. To the Missouri 
bill, however, had been attached a section prohibiting slavery in 
all territories of the United States north of latitude 36 30'. This 
clause, known in our history as the Missouri Compromise, was 
warmly advocated by Henry Clay. Often did he rise during 
those days of strife as a mediator between contending factions, 
" imploring, entreating, beseeching " for peace and brotherhood. 
At one time, it is said, he spoke four hours and a half, pouring 
forth a continued stream of impassioned eloquence. 

The situation of the country at the end of the first twenty 
years of the century was very flattering. Its population in round 
numbers was nine million six hundred thousand. Previous to the 
war, its submission to the wrongs and insults of France and Great 
Britain had excited throughout Europe a contempt for the Amer- 
ican character. The general opinion was that the spirit of liberty 
and independence shown in the Revolution had been extinguished 



1820.] 



MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



407 



by a love of gain and commercial enterprise, and that there were 
not enough courage and resolution left to sustain the national 
rights and the national honor. But the war with England dissi- 
pated this impression, and inspired profound respect for a nation 
that gave so many proofs of its ability to cope with the mistress 
of the seas on her favorite element. The unanimity of parties, 
the high character of our statesmen, and the rapid growth of the 
country — all conspired to give the people confidence at home and 
to win deference abroad. The position of the United States 
among the peoples of the earth was now assured. 




THE OLD BLOCKHOUSE, 



CHAPTER XI. 

INTERNAL (DISSENSIONS.— 1820-40. 




HILE the fire of party feeling hai 
apparently died out, through the 
removal of old sources of dis- 
agreement, new issues were fast 
rising to kindle the embers to 
a more intense heat than ever. 
Slavery, State rights, and the 
tariff were already looming up 
along the political horizon with 
dire distinctness. Added to this, 
in spite of the rapid development 
of the country, its financial con- 
dition was alarming. Benton's 
statement of the " gloom and agony " of these years gives a vivid 
picture of the situation. " No money, either gold or silver, no 
measure or standard of value left remaining. The local banks (all 
but those of New England), after a brief resumption of specie pay- 
ments, again sunk into a state of suspension. The Bank of the 
United States, created as a remedy for all those evils, now at the 
head of the evil, prostrate and helpless, with no power left but tha 
of suing its debtors, and selling their property, and purchasing 
for itself at its own nominal price. No price for property or pro- 
duce. No sales but those of the sheriff and the marshal. No 
purchasers at execution sales but the creditor or some hoarder of 
money. No employment for industry. No demand for labor. 
No sale for the product of the farmer. No sound of the hammer 
but that of the auctioneer knocking down property. Stop laws, 
property laws, replevin laws, stay laws, loan-office laws, the inter- 
vention of the legislator between the creditor and the debtor ; this 
was the business of legislation in three-fourths of the States of the 



1823.] MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 409 

Union — of all south and west of New England. No medium of 
exchange but depreciated paper; no change even but little bits 
of foul paper, marked so many cents, and signed by some trades- 
man, barber, or innkeeper ; exchanges deranged to the extent of 
fifty or one hundred per cent. Distress, the universal cry of the 
people ; Relief, the universal demand thundered at the doors of 
all legislatures, State and federal." 

On the occasion of the recognition of the independence of 
Mexico and five provinces in South America, which had thrown 
off the yoke of Spain, the President enunciated a principle since 
famous as the Monroe Doctrine. In a message to Congress in 
1823 upon this subject, he says: "The American continents, by 
the free and independent position which they have assumed and 
maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for 
future colonization by any European power." 

Agitation had already commenced as to Monroe's successor in 
the presidential chair. There were no less than five prominent 
candidates, all from the ranks of the old Republican party — John 
Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, John C. Calhoun, Henry 
Clay, and Andrew Jackson. Adams had the support of New 
England ; Crawford and Calhoun divided that of the South, and 
Clay and Jackson that of the West. 

The nomination of Jackson by the legislature of Tennessee 
was at first a matter of jest and sport. It was soon found, how- 
ever, that the hero of New Orleans was exceedingly popular with 
the masses. An incident which occurred at Washington was 
thought to have contributed to set the ball in motion. " A gen- 
tleman," says Spencer, " who was connected with the family of 
General Washington, having purchased, at the sale of his furni- 
ture, a pair of pistols which had been presented to the General by 
Lafayette, was disposed to give them to General Jackson, whose 
character he greatly admired ; but, unused to public speaking, he 
requested Colonel C. Fenton Mercer to act as his representative. 
This was accordingly done by a short speech in the presence of a 
number of persons, to which the general made a most grateful 
and felicitous reply ; all of which being published in a Washing- 
ton paper, was soon diffused by the press to every corner of the 
Union, and it was afterward the boast of the actors in this little 
drama that they had mainly contributed to make Andrew Jack- 
son President of the United States." 

Political circles were now convulsed by manoeuvres and in- 



4IO INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1821-4. 

trigues. A nomination by congressional caucus being considered 
injurious to the prospects of certain aspirants, the system was 
denounced. Crawford was the only one of the candidates thus 
endorsed, and this was considered by many as the cause of his 
defeat. The election resulted in ninety-nine votes for Jackson, 
eighty-four for Adams, forty-one for Crawford, and thirty-seven 
for Clay, thus referring the decision to the House of Representa- 
tives. John C. Calhoun, receiving one hundred and eighty-two 
votes, was declared Vice-President. Though Jackson had a popu- 
lar majority, yet when the choice came to be made in the House 
of Representatives, Adams was selected. It was charged that 
Clay threw his influence against Jackson, partly on account of a 
personal animosity, but largely because he had been promised by 
Adams, in the event of his election, the position of Secretary of 
State. This was, of course, denied by Clay and his friends ; but 
partisan speakers and papers rang the changes upon it for years. 

Pending the election, Lafayette, the " hero of two worlds," 
visited this country. He found the people for whom he had 
fought in his youth approaching the fiftieth year of their national 
life. From the moment of his arrival at New York, August, 1824, 
until September, 1825, when about to depart in the frigate Brandy- 
wine, named in his honor, his journey was one continued march 
of triumph and joy. The people feted and caressed him, while 
Congress voted him two hundred thousand dollars in money and 
a township of land. He visited the tomb of Washington ; and, on 
the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, laid the corner-stone of the 
Bunker Hill monument. 

Missouri, the twenty-fourth State, was admitted August 10, 
1 82 1. Its name is derived from that of its principal river, and 
means "muddy water." In 1755, St. Genevieve was founded by 
the French. Pierre Ligueste Laclede, having obtained from the 
governor of Louisiana the right to trade with the Indians on the 
Missouri, in 1764 established a post which he styled St. Louis, in 
honor of Louis XV. of France. On Laclede's death, Auguste Chou- 
teau became his successor. In 1780, St. Louis was a depot of a 
profitable fur trade, having a population of about eight hundred 
persons. French manners and customs prevailed. The houses 
were generally built of logs, roughly hewn and set on end. In 
1804, the stars and stripes were raised over the embryo city. It 
was not incorporated as a town until 1809. The first brick house 
was erected in 1813, 



1825.] 



MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



411 



With the conclusion of Monroe's administration, the Repub- 
lic, as if to mark the completion of half a century of its existence, 
passed from under the control of men who had been distinctly 
associated with the Revolution, into the hands of a new generation. 

There are some curious circumstances connected with the first 
five Presidents of the Republic. In the ages of John Adams, Jef- 




LAFAYETTE AT THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON. 



ferson, Madison, and Monroe, there was a regular sequence, each 
being eight years older than his successor. Like Washington 
and John Quincy Adams, they were all inaugurated in their fifty- 
eighth year, and, with the exception of the latter named, closed 
their terms of office in their sixty-sixth year. Had John Quincy 
Adams been re-elected, his second term would also have expired 
at that age. One to whom we are indebted for this investigation, 
makes here the shrewd inquiry, " Did he mark the turning-point 
in our national career?" Of the first five Presidents, the only 
one who had a son, lived to see him elected to the same high 
office, an event which has not occurred since, and does not seem 



412 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1825. 

likely ever again to happen. Virginia, the " Mother of Presidents," 
furnished four of the first five, and, singularly enough, all — Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe — were born within a few 
miles of one another. 

John Quincy Adams was inaugurated sixth President of the 
United States, March 4, 1825. He was dressed, it was noted, in 
a plain black suit of American cloth. 

Adams was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July n, 1767. 
He gives the following account of the origin of his name : " My 
great-grandfather, John Quincy, was dying when I was baptized, 
and his daughter, my grandmother, requested I might receive his 
name. This fact has connected with my name a charm of mingled 
sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave th3 
name. It was that of one passing from earth to immortality. 
These have been through life perpetual admonitions to do nothing 
unworthy of it." He had a splendid education, not only such 
as is drawn from books and schools, but from the companionship 
of wise and distinguished men. He early entered upon a political 
career, and held in succession nearly every prominent office in the 
gift of his fellow-citizens. In personal appearance, he was of mid- 
dle stature and full form ; his eyes were dark and piercing ; his 
countenance was pleasing and beamed with intelligence. 

The new cabinet consisted of Henry Clay, Secretary of State ; 
Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury ; James 
Barbour of Virginia, Secretary of War ; William Wirt, Attorney- 
General ; and Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey, Secretary of the 
Navy. 

From first to last, the administration of Adams met with de- 
termined and bitter opposition. Scarcely a suggestion made by 
the President was adopted. The friends of General Jackson were 
largely in the majority in both Houses, and believing that Adams 
had succeeded by means of a bargain, and being also determined 
to prevent his re-election and secure the triumph of Jackson, they 
threw discredit upon all his measures. 

During this year, troubles sprang up in Georgia among the 
Creek Indians, with whom a treaty had been made, extinguishing 
their title to lands in that State, and giving them large tracts west 
of the Mississippi. It was claimed that the chiefs who signed the 
agreement were not properly authorized. An appeal was made to 
Washington, and the President sent General Gaines to prevent an 
outbreak. Meanwhile the governor of Georgia, having begun a 



1825.] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 413 

survey of the land, used high language toward the administration. 
The matter was finally allowed to rest till the meeting of Con- 
gress, when a new treaty was negotiated. 

The United States having been invited to send commissioners 
to a congress, at Panama., of the South American provinces which 
had thrown off the Spanish yoke, the President accepted. During 
the debate upon the question in Congress, the administration was 
bitterly denounced. John Randolph declared, " I am defeated, 
horse, foot, and dragoons — cut up and clean broke down, by 
the coalition of Blifil and Black George — by the combination, 
unheard of till now, of the Puritan and the black-leg." This bit- 
ter diatribe led to a duel between Randolph and Clay, in which 
neither was injured, but in which their " honor was satisfied." 

The question of internal improvements was vigorously agi- 
tated at this time. Large appropriations were made for a canal 
route across Florida ; for sundry post-roads ; for repairing the 
national road between Cumberland, Maryland, and Ohio; for 
improving the navigation of the Ohio River ; and to the asylum 
for the deaf and dumb in Kentucky. The government took one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars of stock in the Dismal Swamp 
Company ; surveyed harbors on the seacoast, and deepened 
channels ; reserved lands for seminaries of learning in Louisiana, 
in Florida, and in Arkansas; and granted tracts in Illinois and 
Indiana to aid in building canals. 

The constitutionality of such appropriations, then as now, was 
earnestly discussed, and the opposition was vigilant and belliger- 
ent. A funny story is told in this connection. There was a bill 
before the Pennsylvania Legislature in regard to some public 
improvements, which was strenuously opposed by the member 
from Berks county, and with so much zeal that its passage was 
endangered. Nicholas Biddle, afterward President of the United 
States Bank, moved an amendment, appropriating ten thousand 
dollars for the improvement of the Alimentary Canal. The mem- 
ber from Berks rose instantly, and, notwithstanding the titters that 
grew audible over the House, declared his purpose to oppose any 
appropriation for the Alimentary Canal or any other canal, as 
it was unjust, oppressive, and unconstitutional. The amendment 
was immediately withdrawn and the bill passed. 

The most magnificent enterprise that marked this period was 
the Erie Canal, to complete which took eight years of time and 
ten million dollars of money. An Irishman named Christopher 



4H INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1825. 

Colles is entitled to the credit of having made the first suggestion 
of this great undertaking. He came to New York before the 
Revolution, and in 1785 issued a pamphlet called "Proposals for 
the Speedy Settlement of the Western Frontier of New York." 
It contained a plan for the canal, but it was considered utterly- 
impracticable. In 1 8 10, De Witt Clinton advocated the measure 
in the senate of New York, and it afterward found strong sup- 
porters in General Schuyler, Gouvcrneur Morris, Martin Van 
Buren, and others. It still met, however, with opposition and 
ridicule. An epigram of the period, alluding to Clinton, shows 
something of the spirit existing : 

" Oh, a ditch he would dig, from the lakes to the sea, 
The eighth of the world's matchless wonders to be. 
Good land ! how absurd ! But why should you grin ? 
It will do to bury its mad author in." 

Work was not commenced upon it until the 4th of July, 181 7, 
when Governor Clinton, in the presence of many thousands of 
citizens and amid great demonstrations of joy, threw the first 
spadeful of earth. Even then the people were incredulous. It 
was a common remark, " If I can live until Clinton's ditch is done, 
I shall be content." The first portion navigated by boats was the 
line of one hundred and seventy-four miles between Rochester- 
ville — now Rochester, then a hamlet of less than three thousand 
inhabitants — and Little Falls ; the first boat passing east on the 
29th of October, 1822. 

On the 26th of October, 1825, the whole canal was formally 
opened by a magnificent celebration. The governor, State 
officers, and invited. guests took passage from Buffalo for New 
York in a gorgeously-decorated boat, accompanied by a numerous 
fleet. As they started, the news was telegraphed in advance, by 
means of about fifty cannon placed ten or a dozen miles apart. 
An hour and thirty minutes from the firing of the first gun, the 
report reached New York. Along the entire route, day and 
night, the people were assembled to greet the excursionists. 
They arrived at Albany on the 2d of November, and thence all 
the steamboats on the Hudson River escorted them to the 
metropolis. One of the ceremonies near Sandy Hook was the 
emptying of a keg of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic, thus typu 
fying the union of the waters of the lake with those of the ocean. 

In the year 1825, the Capitol at Washington was completed. 



1825-6.] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 



415 



The outer walls had been uninjured by the fire of 18 14, and an 
architect named Latrobe was appointed by Congress to superin- 
tend its reconstruction. He remained in charge until 181 7, when 
he was succeeded by Charles Bullfinch. The foundation of the 
central building was laid March 24, 18 18, the entire edifice being 
finally finished according to the original plan. Congress in the 
meantime held its sessions, first in the building used by the Post- 
office Department ; afterward in a building on the east side of 
Capitol Park. The latter situation was thus occupied for fifteen 
years, and became known as the " Old Capitol." It acquired a 
not very pleasant reputation during the civil war as a govern- 
ment prison. 




MONTICELLO, THE HOME OF JEFFERSON. 



In 1826, the Republic reached its semi-centennial, and the 
anniversary of its birthday was generally celebrated. But the 
occasion had other observances than the ringing of bells, the 
firing of cannon, or the shouts of a joyous people. On that day 
died the two patriots, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. A 
short time before, a gentleman called upon Adams and requested 
a toast for a banquet on the coming celebration. " I will give 
you, Independence forever," said the old man. " Will you not 
add something to it ? " asked the visitor. " Not a word," was 
the reply. The toast was presented at the dinner, and received 
with deafening cheers. Almost at the same moment, the soul 
of the statesman passed away. His last words were, " Thomas 
Jefferson still survives." 



4l'> INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1827. 

It was not so ; from his beautiful home at Monticello, he had 
gone an hour or two before. As midnight of the 3d ap- 
proached, his friends had stood, watch in hand, hoping for yet a 
few moments of life, so that his death might be hallowed by 
taking place on the 4th. Their pious wish was granted. He 
still lived as the slow hours wore on ; and it was not till past 
noon that he peacefully breathed his last. 

The year 1827 witnessed the building of the first railroad in 
the United States at Quincy, Massachusetts. It was operated by 
horse-power, and was three miles in length, from the granite 
quarries to the Neponset River. In the same year, another road, 
nine miles long, was laid out from the coal mines at Mauch 
Chunk, Pennsylvania, to the Lehigh River. The next year, the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company constructed a road from 
their coal mines to Honesdale, a locomotive being imported from 
England. It was the first steam-engine used in the United States 




THE FIRST RAILROAD TRAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. 



It is still in good preservation, and will be exhibited at the Cen- 
tennial Exposition. Other railroad enterprises rapidly followed ; 
notably those of the Baltimore and Ohio road, begun in 1828, and 
of the Albany and Schenectady, in 1830. The South Carolina 
road, from Charleston to Hamburg, a distance of one hundred 
and thirty-five miles, opened in 1833, was then the lcngest line in 
the world. 

The administration was in favor of what is known as the 
" American System," i. e. y the protection of home manufactures 
by means of duties laid upon foreign goods. This was naturally 
acceptable to the East, largely devoted to manufacture ; and ob- 
noxious to the South, equally devoted to agricultural pursuits. 
During the year a tariff bill was passed which was so onerous that it 
was called in many quarters the " Bill of Abominations." We shall 
hear of it again in connection with the nullification acts of 1832. 

The political campaign of 1828 was animated and bitter in the 
extreme. Although the friends of Adams put forth every effort 
for his re-election, he refused, with commendable delicacy, to use 



1828-9.] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 41? 

the patronage or influence of the Executive to further their ends 
or to ensure his own continuance in the presidential chair. Many 
of the office-holders under him were openly at work for Jack- 
son, and appointments were made by the President of men who 
were avowed friends of his opponent. 

The term Federal now disappeared, the supporters of Jackson 
adopting the name of Democrat, and their opponents that of 
" National Republicans." The election resulted in the choice of 
Jackson for President and Calhoun for Vice-President, the for- 
mer receiving one hundred and seventy-eight, and the latter one 
hundred and seventy -one, out of two hundred and sixty -one 
votes. 

It is a noticeable fact that in the last three administrations, the 
President had been the Secretary of State for the preceding one. 
Clay, at this time filling the office, was said to be in " the succes- 
sion." The order was now broken. 

The administration of Adams had been a peaceful, and, in spite 
of the financial embarrassments of the country, a prosperous one. 
The public debt had been diminished over thirty million dollars, 
while there was a surplus of five million one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars in the treasury. 

Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the Republic, took 
the oath of office March 4, 1829 ; for the first time in the history 
of this country, the out-going President absenting himself during 
the inauguration of his successor. Jackson was born of Scotch- 
Irish parents at Waxhaw Settlement, S. C, March 15, 1767. In 
his youth, he experienced the bitterness of poverty and the absence 
of parental care. Removing to Tennessee in 1788, he speedily 
acquired the respect of the hardy settlers of that region, and 
occupied several prominent offices. He gained his wide popu- 
larity, however, as a soldier. It was on the field that he won 
the sobriquet by which he is best known, that of " Old Hickory." 

When the people thus bestow upon a citizen a homely title, by 
which he is almost as well known as by his own name, it is 
exceedingly significant both of his character and their confidence. 
There are many illustrations of this in our history, such as " Tip- 
pecanoe and Tyler too," in 1840; "Old Rough and Ready," in 
1848 ; " Buck and Breck," in 1856 : and " Uncle Abe," in i860. The 
familiarity is not of that kind which breeds contempt, but is mag- 
netic and excites enthusiasm. The popular voice seems thus to 
cry out, " He is one of us. We will support him." 
27 



41 8 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1829. 

Jackson was rough, uneducated, and irascible. During the 
trial of Burr in Richmond, while he was haranguing a crowd, 
Winfield Scott, having inquired the name of the speaker, re- 
ceived for a reply, " A great blackguard from Tennessee, one 
Andrew Jackson." He was impatient of restraint, incapable of 
fear, and a principal in a number of duels. Yet he was affable, 
humane, considerate, and, at the bottom, a Christian — if not until 
the later years of his life a professing one, at least always having 
great respect for those who were religious. 

While he was yet connected with the army, an officer com- 
plained to him that some soldiers were making a great noise in a 
tent. " What are they doing ? " asked the general. " They are 
praying now, but have been singing," was the reply. " And is 
that a crime?" asked Jackson, with emphasis. "The Articles of 
War," said the officer, " order punishment for any unusual noise." 
" God forbid," replied the general, with much feeling, " that 
praying and singing should be an unusual noise in my camp ; 
I advise you to go and join them." 

" I arrived at his house," says Colonel Benton, " one wet, 
chilly evening in February, 1814, and came upon him in the 
twilight, sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and a child between 
his knees. He started a little, called a servant to remove the two 
innocents to another room, and explained to me how it was. The 
child had cried because the lamb was out in the cold, and begged 
him to bring it in, which he had done, to please the child, his 
adopted son, then not two years old." 

A son of the famous Daniel Boone was once detained in Nash- 
ville for some weeks, and had taken lodgings at a small tavern. 
Jackson heard of it, went to Nashville, and, carrying him to his 
home as a guest as long as his business should keep him in that 
section, said, " Your father's dog should not stay in a tavern, 
where I have a house." 

In person, Jackson was as angular as he was in character. He 
was tall, straight, and spare. His dark blue eyes, with brows 
arched and slightly projecting, possessed a marked expression, 
and when he was excited, they sparkled with peculiar lustre and 
penetration. 

Jackson's election was shorn of half its brightness for him by 
the loss of her who would have helped him to bear the trust with 
fidelity and honor. His wife was one of the purest and noblest of 
women, and yet, in the heat of the political contest just ended, 



1829.] 



JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



419 



slander had dared to sully her name. She had been the wife 
of a dissolute man, from whom she had obtained a divorce, 
immediately after which Jackson married her. A number of years 
later, he learned that what he had understood to be a divorce was 
only the granting of a petition to sue 
for one. He immediately procured 
a license, and had the marriage cere- 
mony performed the second time. The 
influence she had exerted over him 
while she Kved, seemed to strengthen 
and deepen when she was no longer 
with him, and his rough nature was 
chastened and softened thereby. He 
clung to her memory, cherishing with 
fondness everything that had possessed 
her affection, and wearing her minia- 
ture next to his heart until the day 
of his death. In no one way was the 
change in him more marked than in 
his language. He never again used 
that expletive that has become histor- 
ical, " By the Eternal," nor any other 
that could be considered profane. 

Jackson's cabinet was composed 
of entirely new men : Martin Van Buren of New York, Secretary 
of State ; Samuel D. Ingham of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the 
Treasury; John H. Eaton of Tennessee, Secretary of War; John 
Branch of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy ; John M. Ber- 
rien of Georgia, Attorney-General ; and it having been deter- 
mined to make the Postmaster-General a member of the cabinet, 
William T. Barry of Kentucky was appointed to that position. 

The change in the cabinet was no more complete than that 
which followed in the public offices of the government. Formerly 
displacements had been confined to the most prominent posi- 
tions, but now they reached the lowest. Under Washington's ad- 
ministration, there had been nine officers removed, of whom one 
was a defaulter; under John Adams's, ten, one being a defaulter; 
under Jefferson's, thirty-nine ; under Madison's, five, three being 
defaulters ; under Monroe's, nine, six for cause ; and under John 
Quincy Adams's, two, both for cause ; the whole number of re- 
movals by the six Presidents being seventy-four. During the 




ANDREW JACKSON. 



420 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1S29. 

recess, before the meeting of the Twenty-first Congress, Jackson 
removed one hundred and sixty-seven political opponents from 
office, appointing his friends to the positions. Within less than 
a year, four hundred and ninety-one postmasters alone were dis- 
placed. 

Some politicians in whom the general had confidence, wishing 
lim to remove the collector of the port of Salem, Massachusetts, 
.he name of his successor was accordingly sent to the Senate. 
" Do you know," asked Colonel Benton of the President, " who it 
is whom you are about to remove ? " " No," replied he, " I cant 
think of his name ; but I know he is an incompetent man, and a 
New England, Hartford Convention Federalist!" "Sir," said 
Benton, " the incumbent is General Miller, who was a brave soldier 
on the Niagara frontier." Jackson excitedly exclaimed, " Not the 
brave Miller who said, ' I'll try,' when asked if he could take the 
British battery ? " " The same man, sir," responded Benton. " Old 
Hickory " pulled a bell violently, and when the servant appeared, 
he said, " Tell Colonel Donelson I want him — quick." " Donel- 
son," said the President, as soon as he entered, " I want the name 
of that fellow nominated for collector at Salem withdrawn in- 
stantly. These politicians are the most remorseless scoundrels 
alive. Write a letter to General Miller, and tell him he shall hold 
the office as long as Andrew Jackson lives. Stay — I'll write it 
myself; the assurance will be more gratifying from a brother- 
soldier." That promise was faithfully kept. 

In September, 1829, the owner of the schooner Michigan, the 
largest and rottenest craft on Lake Erie, hit upon a plan to get it 
off his hands, and at the same time turn an honest penny. He 
induced the proprietors of hotels on both sides of Niagara Falls 
to buy the schooner and send it over the falls. For several days 
previous to the novel event, the stages and canal-boats, and 
wagons from the country, were crowded. Farmers left their 
fields, and business men their counters. On the appointed day, 
half a dozen excursion steamers were called into service. Each 
had its throng of expectant people and a band of music. The task 
of towing the Michigan to the rapids was entrusted to one Cap- 
tain Rough and five oarsmen. They put up some effigies, and 
then let loose on board a buffalo from the Rocky Mountains, 
three bears from Green Bay and Grand River, two foxes, a 
raccoon, a dog, a cat, and four geese. When they cut the tow- 
line, this extraordinary crew did what many other crews have 




DANIEL YVEJBSTJSH. 



1829-30.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 42 1 

done — ran from one end of the deck to the other in despair. The 
ship started off majestically, amid the huzzas of the eager specta- 
tors who crowded the high shores on either side. She darted 
through the first rapids as true as any pilot could have guided 
her. Two of the bears then plunged into the rapids, swam to 
land, and were caught. The remaining one attempted to climb 
the rigging. As the vessel descended the second rapids, her mast 
went by the board. She then swung partly around and presented 
her broadside to the foaming waters. Here she remained station- 
ary for a few moments, poised on the waves. Then she shot to 
the third rapids, where she bilged, but carried her hull, appar- 
ently whole, between Grass Island and the British shore to the 
Horseshoe, over which she plunged, stern foremost. The ship 
was dashed into a thousand pieces. The cat, the dog, and the 
foxes were never heard of more ; but the geese were found below 
on the bank quietly oiling their feathers. The effigy of Andrew 
Jackson was also uninjured — like the geese, as some papers dryly 
remarked — -and was greeted with shouts as it threw its arms 
about and knocked its knees together in the eddies. 

December 29, 1829, Mr. Foot of Connecticut introduced into 
the Senate a series of resolutions in relation to the public lands. 
The discussion which followed lasted several weeks and took a 
wide range, including almost every issue that party feeling or po- 
litical ambition could raise. Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, 
a brilliant and engaging orator, in the course of a speech, January 
19th, attacked the policy of the government toward the Western 
States, favored the idea of giving the public lands to the settlers, 
and objected to a tariff in preference to direct taxation. Daniel 
Webster of Massachusetts replied, deprecating the light value 
which seemed to be placed upon the Union, and defending the 
tariff and the action of the East with regard to it, as well as to the 
public lands and all Western interests. Two days after, Hayne 
rejoined, declaring that Webster had once opposed the tariff 
which he then advocated ; supporting the institution of slavery : 
deprecating the consolidation of the Union ; asserting the right 
of a State to resist the execution of a law she deems unconstitu- 
tional ; and taunting the East with the Hartford Convention and 
its opposition to the war of 18 12-14. January 26th, Webster 
delivered his second great speech, and the one which gave him 
the proud title of the " Defender of the Constitution." After jus- 
tifying his own course and the history of Massachusetts, he closed 



422 



INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. 



[1829-30. 



with the memorable words, " Liberty and union, now and forever, 
one and inseparable ! " 

The feelings entertained by the mass of the people during this 
lengthy debate are well evidenced by an incident related of a 
farmer-friend of Webster, who regarded him with something akin 
to worship. He had watched the proceedings in Congress with 
anxious solicitude. Day followed day, and made themselves into 
weeks, and yet his hero had not spoken. He felt that the coun- 
try's safety depended upon Webster, and his silence indicated 




HAYNE AND WEBSTER. 



that nothing could be said on the side of the Constitution, and 
portended disaster to the Republic. At length came the speech 
of Hayne denouncing the Union. He took to his bed, convinced 
that Webster was crushed. In a few days, Webster's reply was 
brought to him. For some time he refused to read it; but finally, 
glancing at a portion, he suddenly seized the paper and perused 
the first few calm and dignified sentences : " When the mariner 
has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an un- 
known sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the 
storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascer- 
tain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. 
Let us imitate his prudence, and, before we float further on the 
waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, 
that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I 
ask for the reading of the resolution." It was enough. In the 



iS29-31.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 423 

joy of the moment, he threw the paper high in air, and cried 
out to his son, " Boy, bring me my boots. Webster has spoken ! " 
From that instant he was a well man. 

During the first session of the Twenty-first Congress, Jackson 
used the veto-power four times, while Washington had employed 
it only twice during his entire presidency, and the Adamses and 
Jefferson not at all. 

The President became personally alienated from Calhoun on 
learning that he had been opposed to him during the Seminole 
:ampaign ; and politically, on account of his support of the doc- 
trine of nullification. Calhoun being a candidate for the next 
presidency, with a strong following, a rupture arose in the cab- 
inet, which led to the resignation of all its members. Scandal, 
ever busy with Jackson's private as well as public life, attributed 
the disagreement to the influence of Mrs. Eaton, wife of the 
Secretary of War, with whom many ladies, especially the wives 
of the Calhoun leaders, refused to associate. Jackson attempted 
to control these matters of social etiquette, but only aggravated 
the feeling. . 

The new cabinet consisted of Edward Livingston of Louisiana, 
Secretary of State ; Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of War ; 
Louis McLane of Delaware, Secretary of the Treasury ; Levi 
Woodbury of New Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy ; and 
Roger B. Taney of Maryland, Attorney-General. 

James Monroe died in New York July 4, 1831. This sad 
event, occurring on the fifty-fifth anniversary of the nation's birth, 
five years after that of Adams and Jefferson, afforded occasion for 
grave reflection, and seemed pregnant with some mysterious 
moral lesson. 

In this year, John Quincy Adams took his seat in the House 
as representative from Massachusetts. It was the only instance 
that had happened of one who had been the Chief Executive after 
ward taking part in the deliberations of the legislative branch ot 
the government. He was returned by his constituents eight times 
The influence and fame of the " Old Man Eloquent " grew contin 
ually, in spite of his " stormy petrel " character. At his death ia 
1848, he had served his country in high public trusts for fifty- 
three years — a longer period than any other statesman in our 
history. 

Perhaps the most important event of the year, judged by its 
influence in forming the germ of those dissensions that culminated 



424 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1832. 

thirty years afterward, was the establishment in Boston by Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison of " The Liberator," a weekly journal 
devoted to the advocacy of the most decided and uncompro- 
mising anti-slavery views. Its motto was, " My country is the 
world, my countrymen are all mankind." Though finding some 
sympathizers, it was condemned nearly everywhere at the North, 
and in the South excited the most intense exasperation. Garrison 
was threatened with assassination, and was in peril of his life even 
in Boston. 

The United States Bank, the creation of Hamilton, was the 
custodian of the public funds and the centre of a constantly 
expanding paper currency. Jackson always regarded this insti- 
tution as an unsound stimulus to trade, a promoter of unhealthy 
speculation and extravagant habits, and a huge moneyed mo- 
nopoly, possessing a tremendous latent power of corruption, and 
capable of becoming the " scourge of the people." As its second 
charter would expire in 1836, a new one was granted in 1832. 
The bill, however, was vetoed by the President, and Congress 
sustained his action. 

When the first charter expired in 181 1, the amount of its un- 
redeemed bills was two hundred and five thousand dollars. In 
1823, twelve years having elapsed, the court decided that the 
stockholders should no longer be liable. A fund of five thousand 
dollars was, however, reserved for any instances of peculiar hard- 
ship which might arise. The whole amount presented was eleven 
hundred dollars, of which the greater portion was in the hands of 
an invalid Revolutionary soldier, and not paid until 1825. Curi- 
ously enough, a note of ten dollars was redeemed only about 
twelve years since. 

Many ot the agricultural States had protested against the 
tariff of 1828. In June, 1832, Congress passed a new protec- 
tive bill. South Carolina instantly took the lead in opposition. 
Her legislature nullified the act of Congress, and prepared to 
resist the collection of the revenue at Charleston. Jackeon at 
once issued a proclamation calling upon the people of South 
Carolina to return to their loyalty, and ordering the naval and 
military forces of the Republic to Charleston to enforce the laws. 
This prompt action put an end to the threatened secession. As a 
pacifying measure, Clay came forward in Congress with his cele- 
brated " Tariff Compromise," which provided for a gradual 
reduction of all duties above the revenue standard. Clay, being 



1832.] 



JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



4^5 



told that his action would injure his prospects for the presidency, 
nobly replied, " I would rather be right than be President." 

June 21, 1832, occurred in New York the first case in this 
country of that scourge of mankind, the Asiatic cholera. As it 
swept over the land, it appalled the stoutest-hearted, and for a 




HENRY CLAY ADDRESSING THE SENATE. 



time carried dismay into the ranks of the medical profession. In 
New Orleans alone, there were sixteen hundred and sixty-eight 
deaths in thirteen days. 

A treaty had been made with the Sacs and the Foxes, by 
which they agreed to cede their lands to the government and to 
remove beyond the Mississippi. As they were reluctant to leave, 
the governor of Illinois called out the militia to enforce its pro- 
visions. The Indians were exasperated, and in March, 1832, the 
Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagoes recrossed the Mississippi under 
their chief, Black Hawk, and committed many depredations. The 
United States troops defeated the Indians in several skirmishes, 
followed them into their lurking-place, and captured Black Hawk 
and other chiefs. The captives were taken to the principal 
cities of the East, that they might see the power of the govern- 
ment against which they were contending. They returned home, 
advising their people to bury the hatchet, and the warriors 
accordingly retired to Iowa. 



426 



INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. 



[1832-33. 



The friends of the administration were agreed that Jackson 
should be nominated for another term ; but to decide who should 
have the second place, a Democratic convention, the first in this 
country, was held at Baltimore, May, 1832. Martin Van Buren 
of New York was chosen. The " National Republicans," com- 
posed of the enemies of Jackson and the friends of Calhoun, met 
at Baltimore December 5, 1831, and put in nomination Henry 
Clay for President, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania for Vice- 
President. 

There was still another ticket in the field, that of the Anti- 
Masonic party, which arose in this wise: In 1826, William Mor- 
gan of Batavia, N. Y., was taken from his home at night and 
never heard of afterward. The Masonic fraternity was charged 
with having murdered him for violating his oath and publishing 
the secrets of the order. Much mystery surrounds the case even 
to this day. At the time it caused an intense excitement. The 
issue between the Masons and their enemies became a political 
one. A party was organized, which eventually brought into prom- 
inence such men as Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward. A 
national convention was called at Philadelphia, which named for 
the presidency William Wirt of Maryland, and for the vice-presi- 
dency Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania. 

The election gave General Jackson two hundred and nineteen 
votes ; Henry Clay, forty-nine ; John Floyd, eleven ; and William 
Wirt, seven ; for Vice-President, Van Buren, one hundred and 

eighty -nine; John Sergeant, 
forty-nine ; William Wilkins, 
thirty ; Henry Lee, eleven ; 
Amos Ellmaker, seven. The 
vote of South Carolina was 
given to Floyd and Lee. 

Jackson, feeling that his 
administration had received 
the unmistakable approval of 
the nation, struck another 
blow at the United States 
Bank. Being informed that it was using large sums for poli- 
tical purposes, he conceived that the public money was unsafe 
in its keeping. In opposition to Congress and the advice of 
his cabinet, he accordingly, in 1833, removed the deposits from 
its vaults. A panic ensued ; distress prevailed through the coun- 




THE UNITED STATES BAN! 



1833.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 427 

try ; countless petitions poured in against the measure ; Congress 
protested ; yet through it all the old hero struggled, confident 
that he was right. During the depression, two attempts were 
made upon his life — one by a crazy house-painter, who had been 
told that Jackson was the cause of his being out of employment ; 
the other by a naval lieutenant named Randolph. In the Senate, 
the President was supported by the sturdy Thomas H. Benton 
of Missouri and the accomplished John Forsyth of Georgia. But 
against these was that trio of statesmen — Clay, Calhoun, and 
Webster, who made memorable the age in which they lived. 

Jackson's opponents now organized themselves as Whigs. 
The name had belonged to the patriots of the Revolution, which 
was not so long passed that its memories had lost their fragrance. 
The derivation of the term is forgotten. Among the probable 
ones are : a bibulous origin, from a Scotch drink of that name ; a 
religious one, from the initial letters of the motto of the Cove- 
nanters, " We hope in God " ; and a political one, from the 
Covenanters themselves, who were called Whiggamors or Whigs, 
and who, in 1648, marched upon Edinburgh, whence all who op- 
posed the English court came to be called Whigs. The cardinal 
principles of the new party were a high protective tariff, a 
national bank, and a generous policy of public improvements. 

The opposition procured the passage in the Senate of a reso- 
lution declaring that the President, in removing the public de- 
posits, had assumed authority not conferred by the Constitution 
and laws, but in derogation of both. Three years after, a motion 
of Benton's was adopted expunging it from the records, and it 
now stands with a square of broad black lines about it, and over 
its face, written in bold characters, the order of the Senate 
directing its cancellation. 

On the night of November 13, 1833, occurred the grandest 
display of shooting meteors on record. The falling stars filled 
the heavens thick as snow-flakes. Fire-balls darted through the 
air, one in North Carolina being as large as the moon, while at 
Niagara Falls another hung over the cataract, darting streams of 
fire into the falling waters. A Southern planter thus narrates the 
effect of the phenomenon on the minds of his slaves : " I was sud- 
denly awakened by the most distressing cries that ever fell on my 
ears. Shrieks of horror and calls for mercy I could hear from 
most of the negroes of the three plantations, amounting in all to 
about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the 



428 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1833-5. 

cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name. I 
arose, and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment, 
I heard the same voice, still beseeching me to rise, and saying, 
" O my God, the world is on fire ! " I then opened the door, and 
it is difficult to say which excited me the most — the awfulness of 
the scene or the distressed cries of the negroes. Upward of one 
hundred lay prostrate on the ground, some speechless, and some 
with the bitterest cries, but with their hands raised, imploring 
God to save the world and them. The scene was truly awful ; 
for never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell toward 
the earth." 

The winter of 1834-5 was remarkable for its severity. The 
7th of February was long quoted as the " cold Saturday." At 
several places in New York, mercury congealed in the thermome- 
ters. The Chesapeake Bay was frozen over. The Savannah 
River at Augusta, Georgia, was coated with ice. Orange trees 
as far south as St. Augustine, and fig trees one hundred years old 
in Georgia, were killed. The snow in many of the Southern 
States was a foot deep. 

.The venerable John Marshall, for nearly thirty-five years Chief- 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, died July 6, 
1835. The President appointed as his successor Roger Brooke 
Taney of Maryland, who held the position until 1864; the chief 
judicial office of the Republic being thus in the hands of only two 
men for over sixty years. 

This decade witnessed a complete revolution in the manage- 
ment of the daily press. Previous to 1833, the newspaper of the 
day was but a journal of opinion and fancy, rather than one of 
incident and fact. It was devoted to political essays ; personal 
abuse of opponents ; panegyrics on the partisan leaders with 
whom it happened to agree or to whom it was indebted for 
money or influence, and whose speeches and orations it pub- 
lished in full ; letters from abroad and frequent fiction, with the 
smallest possible space devoted to actual occurrences. It was 
high in price, large in size, and exceedingly dull in matter. The 
purely literary periodical press possessed many of the same 
characteristics. On the 3d of September, 1833, the first number 
of the New York Sun was issued, at a cent per copy, by Benja- 
min H. Day, who, from this circumstance, is entitled to be called 
the father of the penny press and cheap literature in the United 
States. It was a small sheet, but was filled with news. Its sale 



1835.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 429 

gave employment to the first news-boys whose voices were ever 
heard in our streets. On the 6th of May, 1835, the Sun was 
followed by the Herald, at the same price, published by James 
Gordon Bennett, who originated many of the departments now 
so common, such as the city news and the reports of the money 
market. He was the first to collect intelligence from all parts 
of the country. In April, 1841, the New York Tribune was 
founded by Horace Greeley. These three journals were the 
exponents of the new order of things in the periodical press, and 
speedily had followers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and 
other prominent cities. Their cheapness and ability created that 
taste for reading which has grown into a passion and become a 
marked characteristic of our countrymen. 

Wednesday night, December 16, 1835, a fire broke out in Com- 
stock & Andrew's store, on Merchant street, New York. For 
fourteen hours it raged unchecked, destroying property to the 
extent of twenty million dollars, and leaving forty-five acres of 
land covered with ashes. But one building remained standing in 
the burnt district, looking in its loneliness like an oasis in a desert. 
It was Benson's fire-proof, copper store, at No. 83 Water Street. 

Trouble had now again arisen with France. Five million dol- 
lars were due the United States for injuries done to our commerce 
during Napoleon's war. Payment being neglected, Jackson inter- 
fered with his sharp, stern will, ordered our minister to leave the 
French court, and recommended Congress to authorize reprisals. 
France resented this spirited action, but paid the money. Den- 
mark, Naples, Spain, and Portugal, also, in good time, settled 
their bills of a similar nature. 

During this year, the Seminoles in Florida, under the lead of 
Osceola, a half-breed of great bravery and talents, broke into open 
hostility. They were discontented with a proposed removal be- 
yond the Mississippi, but the immediate cause was the seizure of 
Osceola's wife as a slave, while on a visit to Fort King. The chief 
was so defiant, that General Thompson, the government agent, 
put him in irons. Dissembling his wrath, Osceola consented to 
the treaty ; but no sooner was he released than, burning with in- 
dignation, he plotted a general massacre of the whites. General 
Thompson was shot and scalped while sitting at dinner, under the 
very guns of Fort King. The same day, Major Dade, marching 
to the relief of the fort with over one hundred men, was waylaid 
near the Wahoo Swamp. In the midst of the fight, the Indians 



430 



INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. 



[1835-?. 



fell back for a consultation. The troops immediately began to 
build a breastwork of logs, but before it was knee-high the sav- 
ages returned yelling and firing, and soon carried the little en- 
trenchment. A young officer, it is said the only one of the party 
not dead or mortally wounded, tendered them his sword, but was 
immediately shot. In the following February, General Gaines 
visited the scene of the massacre. He found the little breastwork, 
mute witness of the desperate energy of the hour, its logs pierced 




THE DADE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT, NEW YORK. 

with bullets, and behind it the men, kneeling or lying as they 
were when they received the fatal shot. The dry air of the Florida 
winter had preserved their bodies unchanged. He buried them 
all in a common grave, and placed their solitary cannon upright 
at the head of the mound. A beautiful monument was afterward 
erected at the Military Academy of West Point, to the memory 
of Major Dade and his heroic men. 

Beaten in several engagements, the Indians fled to the Ever- 
glades. Expeditions that failed to find the enemy, and murders 
and surprises by an invisible foe, disheartened the army and dis- 
couraged the country. Osceola was the soul of the resistance. 
To every appeal for peace, he replied, " Here I hunted when a 
boy ; here my father lies buried ; here I wish to die." In October, 
1837, while holding a conference with General Jessup, under a 
flag of truce, he was seized and taken to Fort Moultrie, where he 
died the next year. Colonel Zachary Taylor defeated the Indians 



1835-7.] JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 43 1 

in a sanguinary battle, at Okechobee, on Christmas day, 1837. 
Treaty after treaty was made and broken; bloodhounds were 
imported from Cuba, to the disgust of all Christian hearts ; and a 
fitful war was waged till 1842. Meanwhile the most of this once 
powerful tribe had been transported beyond the Mississippi. 

The year 1835 deserves to be commemorated as the time when 
the Republic was out of debt. The next year, the surplus in the 
Treasury, about thirty-seven million dollars, was distributed among 
the States, on their pledge to return the amount when wanted. 
This influx of capital stimulated business to a hot-house growth. 
Seven hundred banks flooded the country with paper -money. 
Speculation ran riot, especially in western lands. The sales of 
government land increased from one or two million dollars per 
year to twenty millions. New cities were laid out in the wilder- 
ness, and fabulous prices were charged for building lots, which 
existed only on paper. Everybody could get credit, and every- 
body had a project for making a fortune. 

Arkansas, the twenty-fifth State of the Union, was admitted 
June 15, 1836. It takes its name from a tribe of Indians once liv- 
ing within its borders. It was settled by the French, under the 
Chevalier de Tonti, as early as 1685, and in the transfers and ces- 
sions of territory, followed the fate of the other portions of Louis- 
iana. 

In 1836, Congress accepted the trust of James Smithson, an 
Englishman, conferring upon our government a legacy of five 
hundred and fifteen thousand one hundred and sixty-nine dollars, 
for the " general diffusion of knowledge among men." The Insti- 
tution at Washington which bears his name was founded with the 
proceeds of this magnificent bequest. 

At the Presidential election, Jackson's policy was once more 
endorsed by the people ; Martin Van Buren being chosen his suc- 
cessor by one hundred and seventy votes out of two hundred and 
ninety-four. The Whigs, unable to combine, had three candidates 
in the field, viz., William Henry Harrison, John McLean, and Daniel 
Webster. There being no majority for Vice-President, the elec- 
tion was finally thrown into the Senate, when Richard M. Johnson 
of Kentucky, the Democratic candidate, was chosen. 

Michigan, the twenty-sixth State of the Union, was admitted 
January 26, 1837. The name is derived from an Indian term sig- 
nifying " Great Lake." The first white men within its borders 
were French missionaries, fur-traders, and Canadian voyageurs. 



432 INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. [1837. 

The oldest settlement is Sault Ste. Marie, founded by Father Mar- 
quette in 1668. Michigan formed a part of the Northwest Terri- 
tory, and then of the Territory of Indiana ; but in 1805 was set off 
by itself. Its early history is intimately connected with that of 
General Lewis Cass, who came to Detroit in 181 5, and invested 
his whole fortune (twelve thousand dollars) in lands lying near the 
village, as it was then. Before he died, the tract was worth two 
million dollars. He was governor of the Territory for sixteen 
years, during which he was a sort of frontier king. He made and 
administered law ; ruled over white and red men ; and negoti- 
ated nineteen treaties with the Indians, buying from them great 
parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Clad in his hunting 
shirt, he traversed the woods and prairies of the northwest, some- 
times in a birch-bark canoe, but oftener on foot ; on one occasion 
traveling four thousand miles in two months. 

March 4, 1837, Martin Van Buren was inaugurated the eighth 
President of the United States. The outgoing and incoming Pres- 
idents rode together to the Capitol in a beautiful phaeton made 
from the wood of the frigate Constitution. In his address, Van 
Buren noticed the fact that he was the first Chief Magistrate born 
since the Revolution, and declared his intention to follow in the 
" footsteps of his illustrious predecessor." During the ceremony, 
Jackson, sitting uncovered in the genial March sun, was the prin- 
cipal object of regard. For once, the rising was eclipsed by the 
setting sun, and when, two days after, the venerable man left the 
Federal city, the great throng who had gathered to see him depart, 
were too full of regrets to speak, and gazed on him in silence as 
he lifted his hat from his white locks, and with his hand waved 
them an adieu. Something of the same feeling, amounting almost 
to reverence, fills the hearts of American citizens even now, at the 
mention of the name of Andrew Jackson. 

Van Buren was of Dutch descent, and was born at Kinder- 
hook, N. Y., December 5, 1782. He early fitted for the bar, but 
the natural bent of his mind was toward politics, in which he soon 
rose to an admitted leadership. In his own State, he reduced the 
management of his party to a science, systematizing it as thor- 
oughly as an army, and making the most perfect organization 
ever known in this country. If Clay, Calhoun, and Webster rank 
among the first statesmen of the time, Martin Van Buren is 
entitled to a place among its most expert and successful poli- 
ticians. 



1837.] VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 433 

Financial ruin was the legacy left by the preceding administra- 
tion. Speculation had begotten extravagance. Foreign goods 
had been imported heavily. These had to be paid for in gold and 
silver, which were sent abroad in large quantities. Just before 
the close of his term, Jackson issued the famous " specie circular," 
requiring payments for the public lands to be made in hard money. 
This swept the gold and silver into the Treasury. Then came the 
inevitable crash and the panic of 1837, with the financial ruin of 
hundreds and thousands of business men. During the first three 
weeks in April, two hundred and fifty houses in New York 
stopped payment. In two days, the failures in New Orleans 
reached twenty-seven million dollars. Property of all kinds 
declined in value. Eight of the States in part or wholly failed. 
Even the United States government could not pay its debts. 
Consternation seized upon all classes. Confidence was destroyed, 
and trade stood still. 

After the dissolution of the United States Bank, the State 
banks were used as places of deposit for the public funds. Van 
Buren's favorite plan was the establishment of the sub-treasury 
system now in use. The measure was not passed until near the 
close of his term, and was one of the chief causes of his failure to 
be re-elected, as the moneyed interests of the country unitedly 
opposed the scheme. 

A movement was now in progress in Canada looking to a 
separation of that colony from the mother country, and many of 
our people were disposed to assist their neighbors over the line. 
The President, as the rights of neutrality demanded, issued a 
proclamation forbidding any of the citizens of the United States 
from taking part in the conflict, and warning them that if the/ 
did, they should be left to the mercy of the government whos.2 
dominions they were invading. A body of American sympa- 
thizers having taken possession of Navy Island in Niagara River 
hired a steamer called the Caroline to convey their provisions and 
war materials. On the night of December 29, 1837, a party of 
British troops attempted to seize this vessel at her moorings at 
Schlosser. A desperate fight ensued ; but she was at last set on 
fire and left to drift over the falls. A cannonading was carried on 
for some time between the adventurers on Navy Island and the 
British troops on the Canadian shore. A sufficient force to dis- 
lodge the so-called patriots having collected, they forthwith 
decamped. Other conflicts took place at various points along the 
28 



434 



INTERNAL DISSENSIONS. 



[1839-40. 



line. At first, doubtless, many joined the cause from a love of 
liberty, but soon the enterprise degenerated into a scheme of bold 
outlaws longing for plunder and violence. 

The year 1839 saw a g rea t advance in ocean navigation. Dur- 
ing the summer, the steamer Great Western, built in England, the 
first vessel designed expressly for ocean traffic, and the first one 

on which the sails were regarded 
merely as auxiliary, arrived in the 
harbor of New York. 

The Democrats renominated Van 
Buren for the Presidency, but chose 
no Vice-President. The Whigs held 
at Harrisburg, December 2, 1839, one 
of the most memorable political con- 
ventions of our history. Success at 
various State elections augured vic- 
tory in the next presidential campaign. 
A nomination, therefore, seemed al- 
most equivalent to a final decision. 
The prominent candidates were Henry 
Clay, William Henry Harrison, and 
Winfield Scott. At first, Clay re- 
ceived a plurality of votes ; but after 
three days balloting, Harrison was 
nominated ; John Tyler of Virginia 
was placed second on the ticket. 
Clay's friends insisted that he was 
beaten by trickery. The truth, how- 
ever, was that while his popularity 
was unquestioned, his action upon the 
tariff of 1833 was thought to threaten his success at the polls. 

" Give Harrison a log-cabin and a barrel of hard cider," said 
some of his Democratic opponents, "and he will never leave Ohio 
to be President of the United States." His supporters caught up 
this expression, and log-cabins and hard cider straightway became 
Whig watchwords. The name of the prophet's town (see page 370) 
was applied to the victor himself, and the jubilant refrain, 

" Tippecanoe, and Tyler too, 
And with them we'll beat little Van," 

was shouted in song all over the land. The party headquarters in 




WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 



1840.] VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 435 

every town were located in a log-cabin, the "latch-string" was 
out, and the cider-barrel on tap for all. A miniature log-cabin 
became a favorite badge, and was worn as an ornament by Whig 
ladies, who boasted that their candidate did not occupy a palace 
and use gold spoons and forks, but was content to live in a cabin 
and drink hard cider. Mass meetings and political processions 
then first became general, and aroused the greatest enthusiasm. 
This canvass, therefore, marks an era in the method of conducting 
elections in this country. 

Though Van Buren came into office with a heavy majority, 
the people denied him a re-election by almost as strong an expres- 
sion of their new preference. He received only sixty votes, while 
Harrison and Tyler obtained each two hundred and thirty-four. 
Such a signal revulsion has rarely occurred in the political his- 
tory of the country. After controlling the government for a con- 
tinuous period of twelve years, the Democratic party found itself 
driven from power, and its old opponent installed in its place. 




THE BIRTH-PLACE OF MARTIN VAN Bl>RKN- 



CHAPTER XII. 

CULMINATION OF (DOMESTIC (DIFFICULTIES. 

1840-60. 

ILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 

the ninth President of the United 
States, was inaugurated March 4, 
1 841. His popularity was mani- 
fested in other ways than by the 
large vote he received at the 
polls. It has been the custom to 
name children after those per- 
sons who were especially promi- 
nent at the time of their birth or 
christening. In any community, 
one can thus shrewdly conjec- 
ture the ages of a large propor- 
tion of the people on learning their Christian names. The gener- 
ations of Washingtons, John Adamses, and Jeflfersons have nearly 
run out, but the Andrew Jacksons and William Henrys or William 
Henry Harrisons still flourish among the middle-aged. That the 
latter has been used as a Christian name more extensively than 
any other, is an indisputable evidence of the personal popularity 
of " Old Tippecanoe." Never had the national capital beheld 
such a crowd as thronged to witness his inauguration. An im- 
mense procession of civic and military societies and citizens 
escorted him from his hotel to the Capitol. Harrison himself 
was mounted on a white charger, and was surrounded by officers 
and soldiers who had served under him in the war of 1812-14. 

There was something about the new President that attracted 
every one who came into his presence, inspiring at once confi- 
dence, respect, and affection. He was tall, slender, and pecu- 




1841.] HARRISON'S ADM :iSTRATlON. 437 

liarly graceful in his movements. He had a fine dark eye, 
remarkable for its keenness, fire, and intelligence ; while his 
countenance was strongly expressive of the vivacity of his mind 
and the benevolence of his character. 

General Harrison was born February 9, 1773, at Berkeley, Va. 
Early losing his father, he was left to the guardianship of Robert 
Morris. He had begun to prepare for the practice of medicine, 
when the Indian barbarities along the frontier aroused his mili- 
tary spirit, and he applied for a commission to Washington, who 
had intimately known his father and family. In 1795, he was 
made captain, and was placed in charge of Fort Washington, on 
the site of the present city of Cincinnati. Here he wooed and . 
won the " sweet Anne Symmes," daughter of the proprietor of 
the " Great Miami Purchase," then living in a spacious log-house 
at the North Bend of the Ohio. The father objected to the 
match ; but returning home one day after a brief absence, he 
learned that Harrison had meanwhile wedded his daughter. 
" Well, sir," he said, somewhat sternly, " I understand you have 
married Anne." " Yes, sir," responded Harrison. " How do 
you expect to support her?" the father inquired. "By my 
sword and my own right arm," quickly responded the young 
officer. 

Harrison was not a politician, and, in making his appoint- 
ments, he complained bitterly of party tyranny. He especially 
disliked Henry Clay, who, when Secretary of State, had repulsed 
his application for an appointment to a diplomatic mission. It is 
said that Clay told him that he was the " most importunate 
office -beggar that the head of a department was ever tor- 
mented by." 

The governorship of Iowa had been pledged by Harrison to 
John Chambers, the suitor for the hand of his son's widow. 
Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, had also promised it to 
General Wilson of New Hampshire. At a cabinet meeting, the 
President was informed that the members had agreed to support 
their colleague. "Ah! that is the decision then?" asked Harri- 
son. Receiving an affirmative reply, he wrote a few words on a 
slip of paper and handed it to Webster to read aloud. That 
gentleman glanced it over and seemed a little embarrassed, but 
commenced, " William Henry Harrison, President of the United 

States " The general, rising to his feet, interrupted him 

with, " And William Henry Harrison, President of the United 



43« 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1841. 



States, tells you, gentlemen, that John Chambers shall be gov- 
ernor of Iowa." And he was. 

Harrison was not destined to enjoy long the position which 
his fellow-citizens had so almost unanimously conferred upon him. 
After a brief illness, he died on Sunday morning, April 4th, just 
one month after his inauguration. His last words, spoken as if to 
his successor, were, " Sir, I wish you to understand the principles 
of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask no more." 
It was the first time In our history that a President had died in 
office ; and the news was received with every demonstration of 
regard and mourning. 




THE TOMB OF HARRISON. 



Among the causes popularly assigned for the death ol Har- 
rison, were the importunities of office-seekers and the persistent 
hand-shaking, so characteristic of our country. The truth is, he 
was a feeble old man at the time of his election. He reached the 
capital in the midst of a driving snow-storm, and walked from the 
depot to his hotel with head uncovered. So broken-down was he 
by excitement, fatigue, and exposure, that during the inauguration 
ceremonies it became necessary to remove him to a side- room, 
and bathe his temples with brandy preparatory to his taking the 
oath. 

John Tyler succeeded to the presidential chair, being sworn 
into office the second day after Harrison's death. He had shed 
tears at the Harrisburg Convention on the failure of that body to 
nominate Henry Clay. Among the Whigs, there was much sur- 
prise shown at his selection ; and it had been a matter of wonder 
to the thoughtful that a convention so prudent and conservative 
should have chosen such an obstinate obstructionist. " Why," 



1S41-2.] TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 439 

said Adams, " this man stood up alone in the Senate, and opposed 
Jackson's force proclamation, resisting the united body at mid- 
night, prompted by some whim that nobody could fathom." 

Tyler was the sixth President of the United States born in 
Virginia. He was graduated at William and Mary College, and 
prepared himself for the bar. He served his State as a member 
of legislature, as Governor, and United States Senator. When 
the British were in the Chesapeake Bay, during the War of 1812, 
he raised a company of soldiers to protect his neighborhood. The 
troops were never brought into action, and his military career 
was a short and bloodless one. From this circumstance, he ob- 
tained the title of " Captain Tyler," often applied to him in ridi- 
cule. Tyler was rather tall and thin, with light complexion, blue 
eyes, and prominent features. His manners were plain and affable, 
and in private life he was amiable, hospitable, and courteous. 

His administration seriously disappointed the expectations of 
the party which had elevated him to power. Upon the question 
of a re-charter of the United States Bank, he was speedily in an- 
tagonism with Congress. A bill reviving that institution being 
vetoed, Congress passed another based entirely on the President's 
suggestions, and complying with all his requirements. His veto 
of this caused the resignation of every member of the cabinet ex- 
cept Webster, then Secretary of State. He remained in order to 
complete the delicate and important negotiations then pending 
with England concerning the northeast boundary between Maine 
and New Brunswick. The Ashburton Treaty, concluded in 1842, 
settled this question, and redounded greatly to the credit of Web- 
ster. He then, also, retired from the cabinet. The whole country 
was thrown into a white heat of excitement over this conflict be- 
tween the executive and the legislative branch of the government. 

While Tyler thus lost the confidence of the party by which he 
was elected, he failed to gain that of his political opponents. 
He assumed a style too aristocratic to please the taste of the 
times. He permitted himself to be called in conversation " Your 
Excellency," as a matter of right. His coach was drawn by four 
horses, while two, and sometimes one, had sufficed for his pre- 
decessors. This was said, however, to have been prompted less 
by personal vanity than a desire to gratify his young wife. For, 
although of mature age, he was married during his term of 
office, the only event of the kind that has yet occurred in our 
history. 



44-0 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [18±2-6. 

In 1842, there was a strange outbreak in the State of Rhode 
Island, known as " Dorr's Rebellion." The government of that 
State was based on the charter granted by Charles II., the elec- 
tive franchise being limited to those holding a certain amount of 
real estate. Thomas Wilson Dorr, favoring a more liberal suf- 
frage, called a convention which framed a new constitution. It 
was ratified by fourteen thousand votes ; a new assembly was 
elected, and Dorr was chosen Governor. He attempted to take 
possession of the capital by force, but was resisted by the charter 
party, led by Governor Samuel W. King. Dorr drew up his 
little army on a hill. Pointing to the State troops, who were ad- 
vancing, he urged his men to fight until the last extremity, and, 
if compelled to retreat, to retire in good order, and with their 
faces to the foe ; adding in a low voice, " As I am a little lame, I 
guess I will go now." The civil war inaugurated in this spirited 
manner proved a bloodless one. In three days the matter ended. 
Dorr fled to Connecticut. The authorities of Rhode Island offer- 
ing a reward of four thousand dollars for his apprehension, he was 
arrested, tried for treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. 
He was pardoned, however, in 1847, an d afterward restored to 
citizenship. He died in 1854, but he had lived to see his State 
under a liberal constitution, and his party in legal possession of 
the government. 

The Anti-Rent difficulty in New York, at this time, attracted 
much attention. Lands belonging to the great patroon estates 
(page 56) were held on a kind of feudal privilege, the rent being 
merely nominal, as a handful of wheat or a fat chicken per acre. 
Persons had occupied these farms for a series of years, had im- 
proved them with buildings and fences, and in many instances no 
rent had been demanded. When the owners, their agents, or 
those to whom they had disposed of their interest, at length as- 
serted their claims, there arose a great outcry. Associations were 
formed, and, in some cases, armed resistance was offered by bands 
of persons disguised as Indians. The difficulty was carried into 
politics, and then into the courts. The State Constitution of 1846 
abolished all feudal tenures, and forbade the leasing of agricultural 
lands for a period exceeding twelve years. 

The Mormons also came into prominence about this time. 
Their founder was Joseph Smith of Palmyra, New York. He 
claimed to have had, on the night of September 21, 1823, a super- 
natural revelation, by which he was directed to a spot where he 



1846-8.] 



TYLERS ADMINISTRATION. 



441 




K^Ti^ftH P : 




VIEW OF NAUVOO CITY. 



found buried a series of golden plates covered with inscriptions, 
which he translated by means of two transparent stones (Urim 
and Thummim) discovered with them. The result was the Book 
of Mormon, said to be the history of the Jews who settled this 
continent anterior to the Indians. Going west in 1831, with a few 
converts, he settled at Kirtland, Ohio, which was to be the seat of 
the New Jerusalem. Difficulties having arisen, the whole body 
of believers finally fled to Missouri. Bitter conflicts ensued 
with the State authorities ; the militia was called out, and the 
Mormons were forced to leave. They were kindly received in 
Illinois, where they built the city of Nauvoo, and laid the founda- 
tion of a temple. Incurring again the enmity of their neighbors, 
and coming into conflict with the laws, fresh difficulties arose. 
Smith surrendered himself to the authorities, but was murdered by 
a mob. Brigham Young was then chosen president of the body. 
In 1846, the city was bombarded for three days. The Mormons, 
driven out at the point of the bayonet, went first to Council 
Bluffs, Iowa. Thence, in 1847-8, they crossed the plains to 
Salt Lake Valley, where they established a flourishing colony. 
The Mormons accept the Holy Bible as received by all Chris- 
tian people, but believe the Book of Mormon to be an addi- 
tional revelation, and also that their chief or prophet receives 
direct inspiration from God. They practice polygamy, claiming 



442 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1844. 

that the Scriptures justify, while one of their revelations directly 
commands it. 

A melancholy catastrophe occurred February 28, 1844. The 
President and his cabinet, with a number of senators and 
representatives and distinguished officers, had gone on board 
the steamship Princeton, lying in the Potomac, to witness the 
experimental firing of a large gun, called the " Peacemaker." 
Unfortunately, it exploded, killing Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of 
State, and Thos. W. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy. The former 
had been in office less than a year, and the latter only thirteen 
days. The shattered remains of the gun were deposited in the 
Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and remained there for many years. To 
one asking of the soldier on duty, what they were, he always re- 
plied that it was the old Peacemaker, called so because it made 
pieces of everything it was aimed at, and finally made pieces of 
itself. 

In 1844, Caleb dishing, our commissioner to China, negotiated 
a valuable treaty with that country. The United States was the 
first Christian government permitted by the " Celestials " to estab- 
lish itself within their borders. 

While crossing the ocean in the autumn of 1832, there came to 
the mind of Samuel F. B. Morse the conception of the magnetic 
telegraph. Scientific men had gathered all the material for this 
invention. It was his to make it practical, and thus reap the har- 
vest of their sowing. The story of his long struggle to bring his 
discovery to public notice, and finally the appropriation of thirty 
thousand dollars by the Congress of 1842-3, near midnight of its 
closing session, form a thrilling episode not only in the history of 
our country but of the whole world. In 1844, an experimental 
line was completed between Washington and Baltimore. On the 
27th of May the first message ever forwarded by a recording 
telegraph was sent in the sublime words, " What hath God 
wrought?" It was dictated by Miss Ellsworth, who had brought 
to Professor Morse, in his discouragement, the news of the ap- 
propriation by Congress. 

In May of this year, the Democratic Convention met at Balti- 
more, and nominated for President, James K. Polk of Tennessee, 
and for Vice-President, George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania. 

The first public messages ever sent by telegraph were forwarded 
during this convention. They were a notice to Silas Wright, in 
Washington, of his nomination for the office of Vice-President of 



1844-5.] Tyler's administration. 443 

the United States, and his response declining it. Hon. Hendrick 
B. Wright, in a letter to Benson J. Lossing, says: "As the pre- 
siding officer of the body, I read the despatch ; but so incredulous 
were the members as to the authority of the evidence before them, 
that the Convention adjourned over to the following day to await 
the report of a committee sent to Washington to get reliable infor- 
mation upon the subject." 

The Whig candidates were, for President, Henry Clay, and for 
Vice-President, Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. The 
friends of Tyler, principally office-holders, placed him in nomina- 
tion, but he was forced to decline, appealing, as he said, " from the 
vituperations of the present day to the pen of impartial history." 
The Anti-Slavery party put in the field for the presidency James 
G. Birney of Michigan. 

The question of the campaign was the annexation of Texas, 
which had applied for admission to the Union. The result was 
the triumph of the Democrats, who had unhesitatingly accepted 
this issue. There were enough votes in New York State given 
for the Anti-Slavery candidate to turn its electoral votes for Polk 
and Dallas ; making their vote one hundred and seventy. 

Florida, the twenty-seventh State of the Union, was admitted 
March 3, 1845. Its name is derived from the Spanish word mean- 
ing blooming. The country was settled by the Spaniards, and 
remained in their possession, except between 1763 and 1783, when 
it was held by Great Britain, until 18 19, when it was ceded to the 
United States. 

Among the last acts of Tyler's administration was the 
approval of the joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress 
providing for the annexation of Texas, though the formal admis- 
sion of the Lone Star State dates December 29, 1845. Texas was 
settled by the Spaniards in 171 5 and called the New Philippines. 
Several missions were established, but the Comanche and Apache 
Indians were the terror of the border, and hindered the progress 
of the country. 

Many instances are given of the desperate courage of these 
tribes. After a battle in which the Comanches were severely 
beaten, one of the chiefs shut himself with his squaw in an old 
Spanish house, and refused to surrender. Efforts were made to 
spare him, and the prophet of his tribe was sent to assure him 
that every avenue of escape was cut off. His reply was an arrow 
shot among the troops, killing one of their number. Composition 



444 



CULMINATION -OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1803-20. 



balls were thrown into the house through the roof, setting fire to 
the building. Suddenly he appeared at the open door, and with 
desperate energy rushing forth, nearly succeeded in making his 
escape. He dealt death-blows to the last, slaying three men 
before he was shot. His squaw having been killed, he had buried 
her, placing his warrior's saddle at her head. 

When Louisiana was ceded to the United States in 1803, 
Texas became a disputed territory, as the dividing line between 




the Spanish and French possessions had never been definitely 
determined. For years the country was without any settled 
government. Almost the sole judiciary was " Judge Lynch," 
and the only protection for well-disposed settlers was extempo- 
rized " vigilance committees." Its people were like those who 
gathered about David in the wilderness — " every one that was in 
distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was 
discontented." Whenever a man in the States, unfortunate through 
imprudence or design, or sought after for crime, suddenly disap- 
peared, there were usually left behind him the cabalistic letters 
G. T. T., which, translated, meant, Gone To Texas. 

In 1820, Moses Austin of Durham, Conn., obtained a grant of 
land from the government of Spain for the purpose of making a 
settlement. He did not live to complete his design, but his son, 



1835-6.] TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 445 

with a party of immigrants, founded the city which bears his 
name. In 1830, there were twenty thousand Americans in the 
State. Meanwhile, Mexico had thrown off the Spanish yoke. 
The authorities, jealous of the growing prosperity of the Texans, 
forbade further immigration. Various oppressive acts followed, 
until the settlers were driven to declare their independence. 
Santa Anna, having set up a republic in Mexico, tried to subdue 
Texas, but his army was defeated at Gonzales October 2, 1835, 
and a few days after at Goliad. 

November 22, 1835, a convention at San Felipe organized a 
regular government. In this body Sam Houston made his ap- 
pearance. He was a Virginian by birth, but removed to Ten- 
nessee with his widowed mother, and for a long time lived 
among the Indians as an adopted warrior. When leaving to seek 
his fortune in Texas, he said to a fiiend, " Elias, remember my 
words. I will bring that nation to the United States, and if they 
don't watch closely, I will be the President of the White House 
yet." 

When Austin resigned his position as commander of the Texan 
forces, Houston was placed at their head. He soon took the 
citadel of Bexar — the Alamo — and dispersed the entire Mexican 
army. 

Santa Anna now invaded the country with nearly eight 
thousand men and laid siege to the Alamo, then held by only one 
hundred and forty Texans under Colonel Travis. The place was 
taken by storm, the Mexicans losing sixteen hundred soldiers. 
All the garrison fell fighting at their posts except seven who were 
put to the sword after having surrendered. Among them was 
David Crockett, the famous backwoodsman and hunter. Santa 
Anna then attacked Colonel Fanning, who was stationed at Goliad 
with five hundred men. Overwhelmed by superior forces, the 
soldiers surrendered on condition that they should give up their 
arms and return to the United States. In spite of this agree- 
ment, they were all massacred in cold blood. 

General Houston, with the main army of the Texans, was 
brought to bay at San Jacinto April 21, 1836. He had only seven 
hundred and eighty-three men all told, few of whom had ever 
seen a battle. Charging with the cries " Remember the Alamo ! 
Remember Goliad!" he drove the Mexicans to flight, killing 
six hundred and thirty and capturing nearly all the rest. The 
next day Santa Anna was taken while endeavoring to escape. 



446 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1836-45. 



Houston rebuked him for his perfidious massacres, but pro- 
tected him from the revenge of the army. 

A treaty made with the captive general secured the independ- 
ence of Texas. It was afterward repudiated by the Mexican 
government, which still claimed the country. Houston was 
elected President of the new Republic, being inaugurated October 




SANTA ANNA REBUKED BY HOUSTON. 



22, 1836. The next year, a proposition was made for admittance 
into the United States ; but it was declined by President Van 
Buren. A similar overture in 1844 received a more favorable 
reply, and on the 4th of July, 1845, a new constitution was 
framed preparatory to the admission of the State as the twenty 
eighth of the Federal Union. 

March 4, 1845, James Knox Polk was inaugurated the eleventh 
President of the United States. He was born in Mecklenburg 
county, N. C, November 2, 1795. His family name was origi- 
nally Pollock. He early removed to Tennessee, which State he 
represented in the House for fourteen years, being speaker twice. 
Having declined a re-election, he was chosen governor. 

His nomination for the presidency was accidental, the conven- 
tion on the first ballot not giving him a single vote. He seemed 
to consider his selection, however, a personal triumph over Van 
Buren, who was strongly urged for the nomination, and his 



1845.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 447 

appointments were apparently based on this view. He also man- 
ifested a desire to show that he was not under the influence of 
General Jackson, although, as that hero and patriot had been 
called " Old Hickory," so was Polk termed " Young Hickory." 
He gave to James Buchanan the place of Secretary of State, 
notwithstanding Jackson had said to him during a visit at the 
Hermitage, " Don't trust Jeems Buchanan ; I caught him in a 
falsehood once myself." He also appointed as Secretary of Wa; 
Governor William L. Marcy of New York, because of his enmity 
to Van Buren. 

Polk's manner of living was simple in the extreme. A foreign 
gentleman of culture, who visited at the White House during hij 
administration, has left the following description : " The saloon 
might be taken for that of a retired wood-merchant. An old 
piano, which has seen several generations of presidents and lady- 
presidents, a few straw chairs, six mahogany arm-chairs, two 
sofas, a lamp, curtains of white muslin, a crystal lustre, the por- 
trait obligato of Washington — this is all. Mrs. Polk does the 
honors of this sumptuous saloon with a kindness which merits 
better furniture. She rises, converses, shakes hands, is very 
amiable, and, above all, she endeavors to be so. As to the Presi- 
dent's equipages, they are far from requiring a numerous crowd 
of coachmen, valets, and grooms. If he orders the horses to be 
harnessed, his orders run no hazard of being misinterpreted ; he 
owns nothing but a carriage open to the wind, which is defended 
from the rain, the sun, the cold, only by flying curtains of leather. 
Two peaceable horses draw his vehicle." 

Speaking of an interview with the President, he says, " As 
soon as the office-seeker had retired, the President rang the bell 
for his negro. Receiving no answer, Mr. Polk, suspecting the 
difficulty, came himself to meet the visitor, and this without the 
slightest display of anger or ill-humor. Mr. Polk is not tall ; his 
gray eyes are quick and animated ; his manners are those of a 
gentleman ; his smile is intelligent and arch. He gave the vis-tor 
his hand, and made him sit beside him at a table, entering into 
conversation at once, for one can converse with the President of 
the United States. In Europe it is different ; on similar occasions 
one replies, but does not converse. From time to time he inter- 
rupted himself, and turned aside his head to obey a necessity as 
inexorable for a President who chews as for the humblest citizen." 

June 8, 1845, Andrew Jackson died in his seventy-ninth year. 



448 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1845-6. 

His last hours among the living were calm and peaceful as was the 
holy day on which he passed away, and he left a memory that is 
as precious as his life was noble and honorable. 

The naval school at Annapolis was formally opened during 
this year. Thus was laid the foundation of an institution for the 
instruction of officers for the navy, of which the country has often 
since had reason to be proud. 

Two troublesome affairs had been left on Polk's hands by the 
preceding administration. One of these was the boundary line 
between Oregon and the British possessions. During the last 
presidential campaign, " Fifty-four forty, or fight ! " had been a 
popular alliterative cry ; our government claiming northward to 
that parallel of latitude. The Democratic party was pledged to 
demand " the whole or none " of that vast region. Fortunately, 
wiser counsels prevailed, and a compromise was effected, the 
boundary line being fixed at the forty-ninth degree. 

The difficulty with Mexico growing out of the annexation of 
Texas was not so easily arranged. In anticipation of trouble, 
Brevet-General Zachary Taylor, then stationed at Fort Jessup, 
Louisiana, had received orders to form an " army of occupation." 
In August, 1845, ne advanced with about four thousand men to 
Corpus Christi, at the mouth of the River Nueces, which was 
claimed by Mexico to be the western boundary of Texas. This 
precautionary measure was not intended by our government as a 
hostile demonstration, strict orders having been given to General 
Taylor not to commit any overt act. Meanwhile the Mexican 
minister had demanded his passports. 

In January, 1846, General Taylor was directed to move his 
forces to the Rio Grande, the boundary claimed by Texas and 
our government. Greeley asserts in his "American Conflict," 
that the President and his cabinet shrank from the responsi- 
bility of this step, but hoped Taylor would take one of the numer- 
ous hints which they gave him to that effect. Fie, however, dis- 
regarded them, and only acted on positive orders. March 28th, 
he arrived at the east bank of the river, where he built a fort 
(afterward called Fort Brown), directly opposite and within can- 
non-shot of Matamoras. Thereupon General Ampudia, in com- 
mand of the Mexican forces, ordered him to retire to the River 
Nueces within twenty-four hours, " else arms and men alone must 
decide the question." Taylor received the message with the grim 
satisfaction that every warrior feels who scents the battle from 



184().] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 449 

afar. A few days afterward, General Arista, who succeeded 
Ampudia, notified General Taylor that " he considered hostilities 
commenced, and should prosecute them." The Mexican cavalry 
were scouring the country in all directions. Falling in with 
Colonel Cross, who was out riding beyond our lines, they strip- 
ped him of his accoutrements and brutally murdered him, pound- 
ing out his brains with the butt-end of a pistol. Captain Thornton, 
being sent with a small body of dragoons to search for him, was 
attacked, and the whole party were killed or captured. This was 
the first blood shed in the war. 

Taylor's depot of supplies was at Point Isabel, about twenty 
miles east of his camp. Fearful lest this might be captured, he 
hastened thither with the bulk of his army, leaving at the fort only 
three hundred troops under Major Brown. Having secured his 
supplies, he set out on his return the same evening with about two 
thousand men and ten cannon. Reaching Palo Alto about noon 
the next day, he came upon the Mexicans, six thousand strong, 
drawn up in admirable order to oppose his progress. The conflict 
lasted all the afternoon, but the American artillery, at the risk of 
having their caissons blown up, dashed off into the burning prairie, 
and under cover of the smoke, which the wind blew into the faces 
of the enemy, took a position where they could enfilade the Mex- 
ican ranks, and thus force them to a hasty retreat. Our loss was 
forty-seven wounded and nine killed, including Major Samuel 
Ringgold, who was universally beloved. " Leave me alone," said 
he to his brother-officers who gathered around him when he was 
wounded ; " you are wanted forward." 

About four o'clock the next afternoon, May 9th, Taylor came 
again upon the enemy at Resaca de la Palma. They were rein- 
forced and in great ardor, strongly posted in a ravine, about sixty 
yards wide, flanked by dense chaparral — matted shrubs of prickly 
cactus. Taylor was anxious to reach the fort that evening, as he 
distinctly heard its guns only three miles away. After a few 
moments to rest his troops, he opened the battle, outnumbered 
though he was quite three to one. The Mexican guns were splen- 
didly served, and our forces were severely cut up. The fate of the 
day depended upon their capture. Taylor accordingly rode for- 
ward to his dragoons and shouted to their leader, " Captain May, you 
must take that battery ! " " I will do it, sir," was the gallant reply. 
Placing himself at the head of his command, May dashed forward 
through a fire that cost him half his men, leaped over the cannon, 
29 



450 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1846. 



sabred the gunners, and captured their commander, General La 
Vega, as he was in the act of firing a gun. The infantry followed 
up the attack. The Mexicans fled pell-mell, and many were lost 
in crossing the river. 

On reaching the fort, everything was found safe, though the 
garrison had sustained a heavy bombardment, and its heroic com- 




CAPTURE OF THE MEXICAN BATTERY BY CAPTAIN MAY. 



minder had fallen. In his honor, it was called Fort Brown. In 
a few days the Americans crossed the river, and occupied Mata- 
moras. 

With the first shot of the war had commenced those horrible 
atrocities on the part of the enemy which have made the name of 
Mexican almost synonymous with cruelty and barbarity. The 
bodies of the dead on the battle-field were stripped and mutilated 
in a dreadful manner. General Taylor called the attention of the 
Mexican commander to the matter, and received for reply that 
" the rancheros and the women who followed the army did it ; 
and he could not control them." General Taylor replied, "I am 
coming over, and will control them for you." 

President Polk, early in May, announced to Congress that 
Mexico had " invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our 
fellow-citizens on our own soil." He was at once authorized to 
accept fifty thousand volunteers. Ten millions of dollars were 



1846.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 45 1 

placed at his disposal. An outburst of patriotic fervor swept over 
the country. Three hundred thousand men offered their services. 

The plan adopted by the military authorities was to attack 
Mexico on three different lines. One column, under Taylor, was 
to advance from Matamoras ; another, under General Kearney, 
was to march through New Mexico to California ; and a third, 
under General Wool, was to conquer the northern provinces of 
Mexico. 

In September, Taylor advanced from Matamoras with six 
thousand troops. On reaching; Monterey, he found this city 
strongly fortified and garrisoned by ten thousand men, eager to 
avenge the disgrace of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Tay- 
lor quickly laid his plans. General Worth was sent to carry the 
Saltillo road in the rear of Monterey. Opening a new path over 
the mountains, he captured the fortified heights guarding that 
route, the Bishop's Palace — a stone building obstinately defended 
— and in two days had reached the walls of the city and cut off its 
supplies. The grand assault was made on the 23d. Breaking 
down the doors, the troops entered the houses, dug their way 
with crowbars from building to building, and ascending to the flat 
roofs fought hand-to-hand with the terrified enemy. In the face 
of a tremendous fire from the barricades and artillery, which 
swept every street, the army at last made its way to the Plaza, 
and unfurled the stars and stripes. Ampudia, the Mexican com- 
mander, thereupon surrendered the city, and his men were allowed 
to march out with the honors of war. General Taylor being as- 
sured that Mexico would soon make proposals of peace, granted 
an armistice for eight weeks. 

A correspondent of the Louisville Courier wrote a touching 
incident of this battle. He says : " In the midst of the conflict, a 
Mexican woman was busily engaged in carrying bread and water 
to the wounded men of both armies. I saw the ministering angel 
raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and 
then bind up the ghastly wound with a handkerchief she took 
from her own head. After having exhausted her supplies, she 
went back to her house, to get more bread and water for others. 
As she was returning on her mission of mercy, to comfort other 
wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, and the poor inno- 
cent creature fell dead. I think it was an accidental shot that 
struck her. I would not be willing to believe otherwise. It 
made me sick at heart ; and, turning from the scene, I involun- 



452 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1846. 



tarily raised my eyes toward heaven, and thought, Great God ! 
is this war ? Passing the spot the next day, I saw her body still 
lying there, with the bread by her side, and the broken gourd, 
with a few drops of water in it — em- 
blems of her errand. We buried her; 
and while we were digging her grave, 
cannon-balls flew around us like hail." 

The military operations at the 
west had been no less bril- 
liant and successful. Gen- 
eral Kearney started from 




A SCENE AT MONTEREY. 



Fort Leavenworth with one thousand men, and after a long and 
weary march of nine hundred miles, reached Santa Fe. New 
Mexico submitted without a blow. After organizing a system of 
government, Kearney then set out with his command for Cali- 
fornia. He had proceeded three hundred miles, when he met 
Kit Carson, who informed him that Colonel Fremont and Com- 
modore Stockton had already conquered that province. Sending 
back the most of his men, he kept on toward the Pacific with one 
hundred dragoons. 

Colonel Doniphan with the main body of Kearney's command 
marched directly across the country from Santa Fe, and finally 
joined General Wool at Saltillo. En route he fought two battles 
against a force quadruple his own, and conquered Chihuahua, a city 
of forty thousand inhabitants. When his soldiers' term of service 



1846.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 453 

expired, he led them back to New Orleans and discharged them. 
They had been enlisted, marched five thousand miles, and dis- 
banded, all within a year. It was one of the most eventful cam- 
paigns on record. 

General Wool, the inspector-general of the army, had the care 
of all the volunteers. After collecting recruits and forwarding 
reinforcements to Taylor, he set out from San Antonio, Septem- 
ber 20th, with about three thousand raw troops. These he disci- 
plined and trained as he marched over desert regions and through 
mountain gorges. The last day of October he emerged at Mon- 
clova, seventy miles from Monterey, with a " model army." 

The first year of the war had thus proved most successful for 
the arms of the United States. Meanwhile, however, the opposi- 
tion to the annexation of Texas, growing out of the fact that its 
accession had increased the slave-holding area, had not ceased. 
August 8, 1846, the President addressed Congress for an appropri- 
ation of three million dollars, to enable him to negotiate a treaty 
with Mexico. To the bill granting this request a proviso, drawn 
by Judge Brinckerhoff of Ohio, was attached as an amendment. 
It was to the effect that " There shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in any territory which shall hereafter be 
acquired or be annexed to the United States, otherwise than in 
the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted." Also, " That any person escaping into the same, 
from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the 
United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and con- 
veyed out of said territory to the person claiming his or her labor 
or service." 

It was known that the introduction of this amendment would 
be repugnant to the feelings of the Speaker of the House, and it 
was apprehended that he might not recognize Brinckerhoff, who 
was one of the most pronounced anti-slavery men in Congress. 
Copies of the proviso were, therefore, distributed among members 
favorable to its passage, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania being 
among the number. He happened to catch the Speaker's eye, 
and this famous proposition received his name. It passed the 
House, but failed in the Senate. 

The Mexicans had no desire for peace. They occupied the 
breathing-spell granted by Taylor in making preparations for a 
more vigorous war. Santa Anna, who had been in exile at 
Havana, was recalled. The armistice having expired, Taylor 



454 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1840. 



advanced as far as Victoria. Here he learned that Santa Anna 
was coming with a force of twenty thousand men, admirably 
equipped. In the midst of this emergency orders arrived to 
forward the flower of his army to General Scott, who had super- 
seded him in the chief command. Sadly the general complied 




with this requisition, which seemed so fatal to his own glory, if 
not safety. Meanwhile, he sent a courier to Wool, asking him to 
hasten to his aid. In two hours that general was on the road. 
Now was manifested the gratitude of the people for the protection 
Wool had afforded them during his stay. Fourteen of his soldiers 
being unable to travel, the finest mansions opened their doors to 
receive them, and the best women of Parras offered to nurse them. 
During his march, Wool noticed a strong position in the 
mountain-gorge of Angostura, near the hacienda of Buena Vista. 
Here Taylor drew up his little army of five thousand men on the 



1847.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 455 

morning of the 22d of February. The battle cry was, " The 
memory of Washington." The Mexicans began the engagement, 
and there was desultory fighting through the day. At two 
o'clock the next morning, Santa Anna attempted to turn Tay- 
lor's right flank ; then he launched a column on the centre ; 
next he dealt a heavy blow on the left flank ; finally he led his 
entire reserve in a terrific charge upon the centre, hoping to carry 
the gorge, the key to Taylor's position. The Americans were 
almost overwhelmed by their assailants ; but the artillery held it3 
ground, and the Mexican lancers, torn to pieces by repeated dis- 
charges of grape-shot fired at point-blank range, broke and fled. 
Night came, and the American army lay on its arms. Morning 
revealed the enemy in full flight. 

While the Mexicans were, in general, cruel and treacherous in 
their treatment of our soldiers, living and dead, it is pleasant to 
note, for the sake of our humanity, some of the exceptions which 
occurred. One has already been mentioned. Whittier, in his 
"Angels of Buena Vista," commemorates another. While the 
conflict was raging, some Mexican women were hovering near, 
waiting for an opportunity to minister to the wounded. After 
the firing ceased, they ventured on the field, 

"And their holy task pursued, 
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn, and faint, and lacking food ; 
Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung, 
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. 

" Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours ; 
Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers ; 
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, 
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in the air ! " 

Many anecdotes are told concerning General Taylor's exploits 
in this battle, which were used with great effect in the next presi- 
dential campaign. On the first day, a Mexican officer, coming 
with a message from Santa Anna, found Taylor sitting on his 
white horse, with one leg over the pommel of his saddle. The 
officer asked him, " What are you waiting for?" He answered, 
" For Santa Anna to surrender." After the officer's return, a 
battery opened on Taylor's position, but he remained coolly sur- 
veying the enemy with his spy-glass. Some one suggesting that 
" Whitey " was too conspicuous a horse for the battle, he replied 
that " the old fellow had missed the fun at Monterey, and he 



456 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1347. 

should have his share this time." Mr. Crittenden, having gone to 
Santa Anna's headquarters, was told if General Taylor would 
surrender, he should be protected. Mr. Crittenden replied, 
" General Taylor never surrenders." In the crisis of the fight, 
the enemy made a desperate attack on a battery commanded by 
Braxton Bragg. General Taylor is said to have ridden up to him 
and cried out, " A little more grape, Captain Bragg." This 
polite and epigrammatic expression, the like of which seldom 
fell from " Old Rough and Ready's " lips, has become historical. 
What he did say, as repeated to the writer by one who heard it, 
was much more emphatic and a great deal more profane. 

The account of the battle given some years afterward by 
General Taylor himself, is of interest, not so much, perhaps, as 
showing the movement of the forces in detail, as giving a general 
idea of the matter. It was told to Judge Butler, who had lost a 
brother, the colonel of the celebrated Palmetto Regiment, in one 
of the most gallant charges of the battle. The judge was natur- 
ally anxious to know the particulars of the engagement, and Gen- 
eral Taylor had promised to gratify him on a day fixed, when he 
should dine with him. As soon as they were alone, he opened 
the subject : 

" Yes, yes, judge," said the general, " your brother was a 
brave man, and behaved like a true soldier. But about the 
battle — you want to know how it was fought?" 

" Yes, general, if you will be so kind. I wish to learn how 
your troops were disposed on the field, and how you posted them 
to resist a force so overwhelming. Santa Anna must have out- 
numbered you four or five to one." 

" The difference was greater than that, I think, but we didn't 
stop to count the Mexicans. I knew there was a heavy force, and 
longed for a couple of regiments more of regulars." 

" Undoubtedly ; but what was your order of battle ?" 

" Why, why, you see, judge, we went to fighting early in the 
morning the first day, and we fit all day long, losing a good many 
men, and at night it looked pretty bad." 

" Well, what next? " 

" When it got dark, I rode over to Saltillo to look after our 
stores and to provide against a surprise." 

" Why did you go yourself? Why not send one of your aids? " 

" You see, judge, everything depended on not having our 
supplies cut off, and I wanted to see after things myself." 



1847.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 457 

" How was it the next morning when you came on the field ? " 

" Not much change since the night before." 

" Who was the first man you met ? " 

" General Wool." 

" And what did he say ? " 

" < All is lost.' " 

" What was your reply ? " 

" ' May be so, general — we'll see.' And upon that we went to 
fighting again, and fit all that day, and toward night it looked 
better." 

The judge, looking rather blank, asked, " What next? " 

" Well, the next morning it was reported to me that Santa 
Anna and all his men had disappeared in the night, and I was 
devilish glad to be rid of them so." 

Two weeks after the battle of Buena Vista, General Winfield 
Scott landed an army of twelve thousand men near Vera Cruz. 
With the exception of Quebec, this is the most strongly fortified 
city in America. The Mexicans had such faith in its strength 
that they left a garrison of only five thousand troops, bidding 
them remember that the city was named Vera Cruz, the Invinci- 
ble. The American guns opened fire on the 22d of March. In 
four days a breach was made. Preparations for an assault had 
already commenced, when a white flag was displayed on the 
walls, and negotiations were begun which resulted in a capitula- 
tion on the 29th. 

April 8th, our forces advanced toward the city of Mexico. 
No resistance was met until the army reached the village of Plan 
del Rio, near the mountain-pass of Cerro Gordo. Here Santa 
Anna was entrenched with a large army. His position seemed 
impregnable ; but by the skill of our engineers, Lee and Beaure- 
gard, a path was cut through the forest around the base of the 
mountain, and cannon were drawn up the precipice by ropes to a 
height overlooking the enemy's lines. Thence a plunging fire 
was opened upon them, simultaneously with an assault in front. 
The Mexicans abandoned their works, their general fleeing on 
mule-back so hastily as to leave behind him his private papers 
and his wooden leg. The next day the army entered Jalapa. 
Thence advancing, it captured the castle of Perote, on a peak of 
the Cordilleras, and, May 15th, took possession of Puebla. The 
inhabitants, flocking to see the troops, were grievously disap- 
pointed by the plain blue which contrasted so greatly with the 



458 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1847. 





ON THE SUM Mil 



THE COKD1LLERAS. 



gaudy Mex- 
ican uniform. 
They could 

account for the defeat of 
their armies only by say- 
ing, " The American lead- 
ers are gray-headed men." 

The time of enlistment 
of many of his regiments 
expiring, Scott was now- 
compelled to check his 
victorious career. It was 
not until the beginning of 
August that he resumed 

the march with ten thousand men. The route was a toilsome 
one over steep ascents to the crest of the Cordilleras, where the 
beautiful valley of Mexico burst upon their view. Rapidly de- 
scending, the army soon reached Ayotla, only fifteen miles from 
the capital. Thenceforward the route bristled with fortifications. 
To avoid them, a new road was cut to the south. Rounding 
Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, Scott reached San Augustin, only 
ten miles from the city. 

Then began the siege. From the 20th of August to the 13th 
of September, history records a series of brilliant assaults. The 
entrenched camp of Contreras, the tite du pont of Churubusco, 
the foundry of Molino del Rey, the fortress of Casa Mata, and 
the frowning citadel of Chapultepec, mark the successive stages 
in the triumphant progress of the American arms. On that last 



1847-8.] POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 459 

day, the troops swept all before them, chasing the defeated Mex- 
icans through the gates into the very suburbs. Night alone 
saved the city. Concealed by the darkness, Santa Anna fled. 
At sunrise in the morning, the army entered the city, and soon 
the flag of the Union was waving over the Halls of the Monte- 
zumas. 

Foremost among the defenders of Chapultepec, were the stu- 
dents of the military school. Amid the storm of the assault, these 
gallant lads were seen fighting heroically to drive back the in- 
vader from the scene of their study and their sports. " Pretty 
little fellows ! " wrote an officer, " I am sad when I think of their 
faces dabbled with blood or convulsed with the agony of a gun- 
shot wound, or when I remember the mothers whose sons, hardly 
more than babies, were in that cruel fight." 

Within six months, Scott had stormed the strongest places 
in the country, won battles against armies double, treble, and 
even quadruple his own, and inarched without a single reverse 
from Vera Cruz to Mexico. He had lost fewer men, made fewer 
mistakes, and caused less devastation in proportion to his victo- 
ries, than any invading general of former times. 

The capture of Mexico finished the war. The treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded February 2, 1848. New 
Mexico and Upper California were ceded to the United States, 
and the western boundary of Texas was fixed at the Rio Grande. 
In return, our government agreed to pay fifteen millions of 
dollars, and to assume debts due American citizens by the Mex- 
ican government to the amount of three million five hundred 
thousand dollars. The war had cost us about twenty-five thou- 
sand men and one hundred and sixty million dollars. 

The pen with which President Polk signed the treaty was pre- 
sented by his widow to the Tennessee Historical Society. 

During this war several young officers distinguished them- 
selves who, fifteen years later, on a broader field, attracted the 
attention of the world. Among them were Grant, McClellan, 
Lee, Beauregard, Hill, Jackson, Hooker, Longstreet, Buell, John- 
ston, Lyon, Anderson, Kearney, Reynolds, French, Sherman, 
Thomas, Ewell, Sumner, and Davis. Of those officers especially 
mentioned by Scott in his despatches, fourteen became generals in 
the Confederate service and sixteen in that of the Federals. 

John Quincy Adams died February 23d. Though eighty 
years of age, he was still at work, and his final illness seized him 



460 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1848. 

at his desk in the House of Representatives. His dying words 
were, " This is the last of earth ! I am content ! " 

The Democratic nominee for President was Lewis Cass of 
Michigan, and for Vice-President, William O. Butler of Ken- 
tucky. The Whigs, despairing of electing a statesman, like Web- 
ster, Calhoun, or Clay, determined upon one whose military 
reputation would carry weight with the masses, as it did in the 
case of Harrison eight years before. General Taylor was there- 
fore selected as their candidate for President, Millard Fillmore of 
New York being placed on the ticket for Vice-President. 

The Anti-Slavery, or " Free Soil " party, so called because its 
motto was " Free soil to a free people," met at Buffalo and nomi- 
nated Martin Van Buren for President, and Charles Francis 
Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, for Vice-President. It polled 
only three hundred thousand votes, but is of interest as the germ 
of what became subsequently the Republican party. 

The election resulted in favor of the Whig ticket, the Free 
Soilers casting enough votes in the State of New York to give its 
thirty-six electoral votes to Taylor and Fillmore, accomplishing 
an opposite result from that of four years before. 

Iowa, the twenty-ninth State, was admitted to the Union 
December 28, 1846. It was named from a tribe of Indians, meaning 
"The Drowsy Ones." In 1788, a French Canadian named Julian 
Dubuque acquired here a large tract of land, and engaged in fur- 
trading and lead-mining. The region was not thrown open to 
settlers until after the Black Hawk War. The first permanent 
settlement was made at Burlington, 1833, by emigrants from 
Illinois. Dubuque was also founded during the same year. Iowa 
was successively a part of Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin 
Territories, and when organized as a Territory itself, included all 
of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River. When admitted as a 
State, it was reduced to its present limits. 

Wisconsin, the thirtieth State, was admitted to the Union, May 
29, 1848. It takes its name from its principal river, signifying 
" The gathering of the waters." In 1639, the French mission- 
aries, trappers, and traders explored and occupied the country 
west of Lake Michigan. The first settlement was at Prairie du 
Chien — the dog-prairie. The region was held under French 
dominion until ceded in 1763 to England. Canadian laws gov- 
erned the territory, and the English kept possession with a 
military force at Green Bay until 1796, when it reverted to the 



1849.] TAYLORS ADMINISTRATION. 461 

United States under the treaty. From 1809 to 1818, it was a 
portion of the Territory of Illinois ; it then became attached to 
Michigan, and in 1836 received a separate organization. 

Zachary Taylor was inaugurated Monday, March 5, 1849. 
He was the seventh President of the United States born in 
Virginia. After the Revolution, his father, a colonel in that 
struggle, removed to Kentucky. On the " dark and bloody 
ground " young Taylor imbibed those instincts which made him 
afterward such a successful leader against the Seminoles in 
Florida. During the war of 181 2, with only twenty men, he so 
gallantly defended Fort Harrison, on the Wabash, against a large 
body of Miami Indians, that Madison made him major by brevet — 
the first honor of the kind ever conferred in the American army. 
In 1840, he became a planter at Baton Rouge. He was a Jefifer- 
sonian in principle, but was not a partisan. Indeed, it was said 
during the presidential campaign, that he had not voted for forty 
years, and that a nomination by the Democrats would have been 
equally acceptable to him. When interrogated as to his political 
principles, he replied in substance, " I am General Taylor, the 
conqueror of Buena Vista." His inaugural was a plain document, 
as became one more used to the sword than the pen. A single 
sentence has been often quoted : " We are at peace with all the 
world and the rest of mankind." Yet its strong sense and fervent 
patriotism made it highly acceptable to the people. 

The new cabinet was composed of able men — John M. Clay- 
ton of Delaware, Secretary of State ; William M. Meredith of 
Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury ; George W. Crawford 
of Georgia, Secretary of War; William B. Preston of Virginia, 
Secretary of the Navy ; Thomas Ewing of Ohio, Secretary of the 
Interior (the first appointment to this office) ; Jacob Collamer of 
Vermont, Postmaster-General ; and Reverdy Johnson of Mary- 
land, Attorney-General. 

The Secretary of the Navy proved an apt scholar, and admin- 
istered the affairs of his department successfully, but at the time 
of his appointment he was singularly ignorant of its details. On 
one occasion he was paying his first official visit to the Gosport 
Navy Yard at Norfolk. Commodore Skinner, in command, was 
a "sea-dog" who to a rather insignificant person added a con- 
tempt for forms and dress. He received the Secretary on the 
Pennsylvania, the finest ship in the service. The boatswain was 
a large, handsome man, attired in the uniform of his grade, and 



462 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1849-50. 



was conspicuous among the crowd of officers. Mr. Preston took 
him to be the commander, rushed up, and, seizing his hand, shook 
it with great warmth. This blunder produced much merriment, 
and when, a few moments later, the Secretary, looking down the 

main hatchway and 
discovering the pe- 
culiarity of the ship's 
construction, ex- 
claimed, "My ! 

she's hollow ! " it was 
too much, even for 
the stern discipline of 
a man-of-war, and an 
explosion of laughter 
followed that reached 
from the forecastle to 
the quarter-deck. 

About this time, 
an invention was 
brought prominent- 
ly before the people 
which has revolu- 
tionized the domestic 
affairs of the world and released woman from much of the tyranny 
of the needle. In 1845, Elias Howe, one of the benefactors of his 
race, made a sewing-machine essentially like the one now in use. 
Meeting with little success in its sale, he went to Europe, where he 
lived for some years in great destitution. On his return in 1849, 
be found that he had a competitor in I. M. Singer, who had made 
some improvements in the machine and was rapidly introducing it 
to the notice of the public. Howe claimed his own, and after 
much litigation it was allowed. Both of these inventors began 
poor, and gained fortunes — Howe, two million dollars, and Singer, 
nineteen million. 

The first session of Congress under the new administration, 
known as the " Congress of 1850," was a memorable one. Some 
of the most brilliant statesmen in our history — Clay, Calhoun, 
Webster, Benton, Dickinson, and Seward — were prominent in its 
deliberations. Slavery was then, as it continued to be during the 
decade, the ail-absorbing topic of discussion. Its shadow haunted 
every question of the day ; it was a " Banquo " that would never 




SECRETARY PRESTON AND THE BOATSWAIN. 



1850.] 



TAYLOR'S ADMINISTRATION. 



463 



" down " at any bidding. The present issue was upon the 
admission of California as a free State. Debate waxed hot. A 
dissolution of the Union seemed at times inevitable. " Five 
bleeding wounds," as Clay termed them, were opened to the gaze 
of the world. The famous " Omnibus Bill," brought forward by 
the " Great Pacificator," as Clay was henceforth called, was in- 
tended to be a healing-plaster for them all. He proposed the 
admission of California as a free State ; the formation of terri- 
torial governments for Utah 
and New Mexico, without any 
provision concerning slavery ; 
the payment of ten million dol- 
lars to Texas to give up its 
claim to the Territory of New 
Mexico; the prohibition of the 
slave-trade in the District of 
Columbia ; and a fugitive slave 
law, enacting that slaves escap- 
ing to a free State should be 
returned to their owners. 

This plan of compromise 
was sustained by the match- 
less eloquence of Clay and 
the unanswerable arguments 
of Webster. During the de- 
bate, William H. Seward of 
New York attacked the meas- 
ure in his famous " Higher 
Law " speech, which was con- 
densed by an opponent in a single sentence : " A senator rises 
in his place, and proclaims that he holds his credentials from 
Almighty God, authorizing him to reject all human enactments." 
The effect of the bill, which finally passed, was to repeal the Mis- 
souri Compromise of 1820, leaving the inhabitants of the incoming 
State to regulate the question of slavery. 

In the midst of this exciting debate, the country was startled 
and saddened by the death of General Taylor. He was the sec- 
ond President who had died in office. His administration was too 
brief to determine fully its character or influence. He possessed 
an old-fashioned patriotism that breathed the very spirit of 
Washington, and he favored every measure that tended to perpct- 




GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR. 



464 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1850. 

uate the Union. His last public appearance was at the celebra- 
tion of the birthday of our national liberties, only five days before 
his death ; and his last official act was to sign the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty between this country and Great Britain, which settled their 
respective rights and privileges relating to canal communication 
across Central America. Confronting death with the declaration, 
" I am prepared ; I have endeavored to do my duty," the war- 
worn hero, beloved by many and the enemy of none, passed away. 
It was his first and last surrender. 

The Vice-President, Millard Fillmore, took the oath of office 
the next day, and at once filled the vacancy. He was born in 
Cayuga county, New York, January 7, 1800. He learned the 
fuller's trade, taught school for several years, and was finally ad- 
mitted to the bar. He afterward practised law at Buffalo with 
marked success. His public life had consisted of one term as 
State comptroller and four as congressman. His nomination to 
the vice-presidency, as well as his action in office, tended to in- 
crease the feeling between the two factions of the Whig party in 
New York, and make it of national significance. The " rock o f 
offence " was slavery. Those who believed with Fillmore in the 
Compromise measures of Clay were called "Silver-Grays" or 
" Snuff-takers " ; while those who followed the lead of Seward 
were denominated " Seward-Whigs " or " Woolly-heads." 

The new President selected as his cabinet Daniel Webster 
of Massachusetts, Secretary of State ; Thomas Corwin of Ohio, 
Secretary of the Treasury; C. M. Conrad of Louisiana, Secretary 
of War ; W. A. Graham of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy ; 
Alexander H. H. Stuart of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior; 
N. K. Hall of New York, Postmaster-General; and J. J. Critten- 
den of Kentucky, Attorney-General. 

California was admitted to the Union as a free State, Septem- 
ber 9, 1850. A Spaniard named Cabrillo visited the country as 
early as 1542. Later, Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast on 
one of his buccaneering expeditions, and spent a part of the sum- 
mer of 1579 in the harbor of San Francisco. He called the region 
New Albion, but the English took no advantage of his discoveries. 
The name California first occurs in the writings of Diaz, an officer 
who served under Cortes in the conquest of Mexico. Some have 
thought it to be derived from the Latin words Calida Fornax, or the 
Spanish Calient e fomalla, both meaning " hot furnace." The Span- 
iards made the first permanent settlements about 1768; a number; 



1848-50.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 465 

of Franciscan friars founding religious establishments, or presi- 
dios, for the conversion of the natives. They taught the Indians 
to cultivate the vine, the fig, and the olive, and to build houses of 
sun-dried bricks called adobe. In 1822, the Mexicans overthrew 
the Spanish power in California, and the fathers were stripped of 
all their influence and property. The entire population in 1831 
was about twenty-three thousand, of whom eighteen thousand 
were Indian converts. Many emigrants from the United States 
now began to settle in its fertile valleys. It was, however, an 
i dated land, visited only by an occasional ship to buy hides and 
tallow. Ir. 1846, Colonel Fremont, then on an exploring tour 
through Oregon and California, received orders to watch over 
the interests of the United States in that region, as there was 
reason to suppose that the country might be transferred to Great 
Britain. He had only sixty-two men in his party, but the fron- 
tier-men raised the " bear flag " and flocked to his aid. In con- 
junction with Commodore Stockton and General Kearney, he 
took possession of California, and held it until it was ceded to the 
United States at the close of the Mexican War. 

On the 2d of February, 1848, a man by the name of James Mar- 
shall, superintendent of a new saw-mill belonging to Captain John 
A. Sutter, came riding wildly into Sacramento. He trembled as 
he showed to his employer a thimbleful of shining particles of 
gold which he had just picked up in the mill-race, where he had 
been at work. They tried to keep the matter a secret, but it was 
soon out. All ordinary employments were laid aside. Ships 
were deserted by their crews, who ran :o the mines, sometimes, 
it is said, headed by their officers. The news spread over the 
world. Thousands rushed to this real El Dorado, over the deso- 
late plains, across the sickly isthmus, and around the stormy cape. 
In a little over a year, California had a population entitling it to 
admission as a State. The bay of San Francisco was soon sur- 
rounded by an extemporized town of shanties and booths. The 
city flourished "like the magic seed of the Indian juggler, which 
grew, blossomed, and bore fruit before the eyes of the spectator." 
Most of the immigrants were energetic, daring, reckless men, and 
its early history is filled with violence, wrong, and bloodshed. A 
" vigilance committee " was finally organized, which took the man- 
agement of affairs into its own hands, arresting, trying, and pun- 
ishing offenders without fear or favor. For five years justice was 
administered in this unauthorized but effectual manner. In 1856, 
30 



4 66 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1850. 



the last vigilance committee surrendered its power to the regular 
officers of the law. 

San Francisco has been six times nearly destroyed by fire, the 
total loss being estimated at twenty million dollars. Sacramento 
and other large towns have suffered in like manner. Yet such 
have been the thrift and energy of the people, that hardly a month 




*-r-v- -\J V J 'V" ■ '*"f*X %->'■?' *-"* ; -\f' --•'"- '^ -f'-VV S* 




Saa Francisco 



Pacific Ocean. 
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



would elapse before almost every trace of the disaster had disap- 
peared. The whole history of the State seems to belong rather 
to the realms of fancy than to the sober fields of reality. 

Although the Compromise measures of Clay produced a tem- 
porary lull in the slavery agitation in Congress, they convulsed 
the country at large. " The complex, cumbersome, expensive, 
annoying, and ineffective Fugitive Slave Law," as Benton termed 
it, satisfied neither party. At the North, generally, it was silently 
disregarded. In many places, however, it was bitterly opposed, 
and the legislatures of some of the States afterward passed " Per- 
sonal Liberty Bills," by which it was practically nullified. On 
the other hand, the slave-holding States were exasperated by the 
tone of the abolitionists, and the difficulties which they met when- 
ever they attempted to recover their fugitive slaves. Riots oc- 
curred at Boston, Buffalo, Syracuse, and other points, and the 
whole country was stirred by the tides of passion. 



1850.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 467 

The power of fiction was never more strikingly illustrated 
than in the influence exerted by a novel which first appeared in 
the summer of 1850 in the National Era, a weekly newspaper pub- 
lished in Washington. The opening chapters of " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin " attracted immediate attention, and the story, which its 
author, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, had intended to be brief, at 
the wish of the publisher and the urgent demand of the public, 
expanded into two volumes. It touched the popular pulse at a 
sensitive moment, and wherever it was read it intensified the feel- 
ing on the engrossing question of the day. The sale of the work 
was unparalleled. Half a million copies are said to have been sold 
in this country, and as many more in Europe. It has been trans- 
lated into all the principal languages of the world, there being 
thirteen or fourteen different editions in Germany alone. 

During this decade, a bright galaxy of literary stars came 
to the meridian. For years William Cullen Bryant had shone 
serenely as the one truly American poet ; while Washington 
Irving and J. Fenimore Cooper, the first American novelist, 
were the national prose-writers, and divided with each other the 
honors of a European recognition. Longfellow, our poet-laureate, 
now began to be heard in those strains that are destined to " echo 
down the corridors of time"; Whittier, the Quaker poet of New 
England, with his verses full of love for humanity, had sung his 
way to the hearts of the people ; Edgar Allan Poe, the unfortu- 
nate, had written " The Raven " and " The Bells " — hints of what 
he might have done had he overcome his besetting sin — and had 
closed his unfortunate career, all untimely ; Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
attracting attention in 1846 through his "Mosses from an Old 
Manse," by the " Scarlet Letter " and " Marble Faun " had won 
a place at the head of novelists ; Prescott's " Ferdinand and 
Isabella," " Conquest of Mexico," and " Philip II.," had proved 
him a master of historical composition ; and Bancroft had begun 
our one great National History. In other, also, than purely lit- 
erary fields was this period especially active. Albert Barnes in 
Biblical research and commentary; Agassiz in natural history; 
Henry in electricity ; Silliman in chemistry ; Hall and Dana in 
geology ; and many other authors and scientific men, contributed 
to human knowledge with a prodigality that seemed to leave 
small gleanings for those who were to follow. 

What is known as the " Manifest Destiny " of our country, i. e., 
the possession and control of the whole American continent, be- 



468 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1850-1. 

came a favorite theme with the rising- generation of politicians. 
Cuba especially, said they, should belong to the United States. 
They imagined that the people of the " ever faithful isle " were 
anxious for annexation, and that only a demonstration was neces- 
sary to induce the Cubans to rise tumultuously and throw off the 
Spanish yoke. As the natural outcropping of this mistaken idea, 
a filibustering expedition was formed at New Orleans. About six 
hundred adventurers sailed under the command of General Lopez, 
disguised, however, as emigrants bound for Chagres. They landed 
at Cardenas on the 19th of May, 1850, defeated the Spanish troops, 
and captured the governor and his palace. But Lopez, disap- 
pointed in not receiving any accessions to his numbers, and un- 
able to hold that which he had won, was glad to escape with some 
of his followers, leaving the rest to the tender mercies of the 
Spanish authorities. The United States promptly disavowed the 
attempt. The next year, Lopez, with four hundred and eighty 
men, landed on the northern shore of Cuba. His little army was 
soon scattered. He was hun ed down by blood-hounds, cap- 
tured, and garroted. 

In 1850, the world-famous Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, ar- 
rived in America on the Atlantic, one of the Collins steamers, 
an American line that had just been established. On the 12th of 
September, she gave her opening concert at Castle Garden, New 
York, the receipts being about thirty thousand dollars. The fact 
is significant, since she was the first of that constantly-increasing 
number of foreign vocalists who so largely promote a taste for 
musical culture among our people. 

Charles Sumner of Massachusetts first took his seat in the 
Senate of the United States in 1851. Already widely known as 
a scholar and philanthropist, he at once took a foremost rank in 
the councils of the nation. 

In April of this year the Erie Railway was opened. At the 
commencement of the enterprise, the State of New York loaned 
the company bonds to the amount of three million dollars. A sub- 
sequent act relieved the road from their payment on condition that 
a single track should be completed and engines passed over it 
from the Hudson River to Lake Erie before the middle of May, 
1 85 1. A train having on board the directors went from New 
York to Dunkirk, four hundred and seventy miles, April 28th and 
29th, thus releasing the road from its obligation, and virtually 
making its earnings three million dollars for two days. 



1851-5.] FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 469 

On the 4th of July, the corner-stone of the extension of the 
Capitol at Washington was laid by President Fillmore, with ap- 
propriate and imposing ceremonies, Daniel Webster delivering 
the oration. The cost of the building when completed was over 
twelve million dollars. 

The return of the Advance and Rescue in the fall excited a 
world-wide interest. These vessels had been sent out by Mr 
Henry Grinnell of New York, a year and a half before, to search 
for Sir John Franklin. The party had undergone great hardship 
and peril, but had not lost a life. To the regret of all, the quest 
had been unsuccessful. This expedition made known to the pub- 
lic the name of Dr. E. K. Kane, who had acted as its surgeon, a 
young man whose patient investigations, intelligence, and high 
culture received the praise of all who read the delightful Narra- 
tive which he published. Principally through his enthusiasm, an 
expedition was fitted out for him by Mr. Grinnell, which sailed 
from New York May 30, 1853, and did not return until October 
11, 1855. He failed in the main object of his search, but discov- 
ered what was supposed to be an Open Polar Sea. 

Near the close of the year 185 1, there arrived upon our shores 
the distinguished Hungarian exile, Louis Kossuth. He was 
received at New York with honors such as had been paid to no 
foreigner since the time of Lafayette. The people everywhere 
welcomed him as the exponent of European democracy, and 
thronged to hear his impassioned appeals in behalf of his native 
land. He secured about one hundred thousand dollars, with 
which he returned. Events not favoring a political revolution, he 
made himself comfortable, it is said, with our patriotic contri- 
butions. 

As to the United States China opened first her closed ports 
and doors, so was it with her neighbor, Japan. The detention 
in captivity of our sailors shipwrecked on its inhospitable shores 
demanded relief. A fleet was accordingly sent to Japan, under 
the command of Commodore Perry, a brother of the hero of 
Lake Erie. In the summer of 1853, his vessels entered the port 
of Yeddo, the first steamers that had ever floated on Japanese 
waters. After great embarrassments, he negotiated a treaty 
which secured for American merchants two ports of entry. 

The last year of Fillmore's administration was marked by the 
death of two of our most illustrious citizens. Henry Clay died 
June 29, 1852, aged seventy-five. To the very last, his efforts 



47o 



CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 



[1852. 




somm 

ASHLAND, THE HOME OF HENRY CLAY 



were directed to the preservation of the Union and to offices of 
peace and good-will. His cordial manner, his splendid personal 
presence, the magnetism of his oratory, and the fascination of his 
conversation had made him more beloved than any public man 
our country has ever seen. His death was taken home to the 
hearts of the people as if he were a member of each household. 
Calhoun had died two years before, and Daniel Webster, the 
last of the great trio, followed Clay in less than four months. 

The feeling of the nation 
at the loss of Webster, the 
grandest orator and the 
greatest statesman of his 
age, is well expressed in the 
beautiful words of Everett : 
"It is all over! The last 
struggle is past ; the strug- 
gle, the strife, the anxiety, 
the pain, the turmoil of life 
is over ; the tale is told, and 
finished and ended. It is told and done ; and the seal of death is 
set upon it. Henceforth, that great life, marked at every step; 
chronicled in journals ; waited on by crowds ; told to the whole 
country by telegraphic tongues of flame — that great life shall be 
but a history, a biography, ' a tale told in an evening tent.' In the 
tents of life, it shall long be recited ; but no word shall reach the 
ear of that dead sleeper by the ocean shore. Fitly will he rest 
there. Like the granite rock, like the heaving ocean, was his 
mind ! Let the rock guard his rest ; let the ocean sound his 
dirge ! " 

The Democratic party met in convention at Baltimore June 
ist, and nominated for President, General Franklin Pierce of New 
Hampshire, and for Vice-President, William R. King of Alabama 
It passed the celebrated rule which occasioned so much disturb- 
ance at subsequent conventions, that two-thirds of all the dele- 
gates present were necessary to a nomination. The contest for 
the selection of candidates lasted four days, and the forty-ninth 
ballot was taken before a result was reached. 

The Whig convention, also held at Baltimore in June, was the 
last one of that party. It nominated for President, General Win- 
field Scott, and for Vice-President, William A. Graham of North 
Carolina. The other candidates were Daniel Webster and Millard 



1853.] PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 471 

Fillmore. Webster, when the result was announced to him, 
replied, " Feathers and tar," the former alluding to the love of 
display and decoration which was popularly supposed to be one 
of the characteristics of General Scott, and the latter to the chief 
product of the State from which the candidate for Vice-President 
came. 

Both parties pledged themselves distinctly to the compro- 
mise measures of 1850. The " Free Soilers " held a convention 
at Pittsburg, and put in nomination for the presidency, John P. 
Hale of New Hampshire, and for the vice-presidency, George W. 
Julian of Indiana. The Democratic ticket was successful, Pierce 
receiving two hundred and fifty-four out of two hundred and 
ninety-six votes. 

Franklin Pierce was inaugurated fourteenth President of the 
United States, March 4, 1853. He was in the fiftieth year of his 
age, being the youngest person yet chosen to that office. He had 
occupied no very prominent place in American politics, and a 
significant query of the time was, " Who is Franklin Pierce?" 
He was born at Hillsborough, N. H., November 23, 1804. He 
was a graduate of Bowdoin College and a lawyer by profession. 
He had served his State for four years in her legislature, two 
terms in the House of Representatives, and one term in the 
Senate. During the Mexican war, he fought with credit under 
Scott, being wounded at Churubusco. 

March 7th, the Senate, in special session, confirmed the cabinet 
appointments. William L. Marcy of New York became Secre- 
tary of State ; James Guthrie of Kentucky, Secretary of the 
Treasury ; Robert McClelland of Michigan, Secretary of the 
Interior; Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Secretary of War; 
James C. Dobbin of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy; 
James Campbell of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General ; and Caleb 
Cushing of Massachusetts, Attorney-General. 

Shortly after his inauguration, the President attended, July 
14th, the opening exercises of the World's Fair at the Crystal 
Palace in New York. It was the first exhibition of the kind ever 
held in this country. The display of articles was creditable and 
the attendance was large, but the expenses were so great as to 
swallow up the entire investment of the stockholders. The end 
was most disastrous. In October, 1858, the building was burned, 
destroying much, property, especially many valuable works of 
art, among which were the colossal group by Thorwaldsen of 



472 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1853-6. 

" Christ and his Apostles," and the statue by Kiss of the "Amazon 
and the Tiger." 

A difficulty arose with Austria during this year concerning 
Martin Koszta, a Hungarian who had fled to this country and 
declared his intention to become an American citizen. Returning 
to Smyrna on business, he was arrested and carried on board an 
Austrian vessel. Captain Ingraham, of the American sloop-of- 
war St. Louis, happened to arrive in port and learning the 
facts, demanded his instant surrender. Koszta was given up, but 
a lengthy diplomatic correspondence ensued with the Austrian 
government. The result was to evince the determination of the 
United States to defend its citizens from insult in every part of 
the world. 

The map used in making the treaty with Mexico proved 
to be imperfect, and a misunderstanding arose concerning the 
Mesilla valley, which was claimed by both governments. A 
new treaty was thereupon negotiated with Mexico by James 
Gadsden of South Carolina, by which the United States secured 
the coveted territory on the payment of ten million dollars. 

The great event of this administration was the passage, in May, 

1854, of a bill presented by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, to 
organize the Territories oi Kansas and Nebraska. It involved a 
principle which he termed " Popular or Squatter Sovereignty," 
by which a new State should decide for itself whether or not 
slavery should exist within its borders. 

The sectional excitement, which had lulled for a time, flamed 
out anew. During subsequent discussions in the Senate, Sumner 
made some reflections upon Senator Butler of South Carolina, 
and after adjournment on the 22d of May, 1856, Preston S. 
Brooks, a member of the House and a nephew of Butler's, 
assaulted Sumner in his seat, inflicting severe injuries. The 
North declared the bill a repudiation of the Missouri Compro- 
mise. The South, with the Douglas men, averred that the 
Compromise of 1850 had superseded the older act. Both sides 
poured parties of armed emigrants into Kansas. A society incor- 
porated by the legislature of Massachusetts sent thither, during 

1855, one thousand three hundred persons. Soon white-topped 
wagons, carrying the families of emigrants, with all their posses- 
sions, went streaming in long trains over the prairie. 

The Territory was thus rapidly settled. One who visited 
Leavenworth in 1 854, described the scene as follows: "There 



1854.] 



PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 



473 



was one steam-engine, ' naked as when it was born,' but at work, 
sawing out its clothes. There were four tents, all on one street, 
a barrel of whiskey under a tree, and a pot on a pole over the fire. 
Under another tree, a type-setter had his case before him, and 
was at work on the first number of the new paper ; and within a 




SCENES IN KANSAS. 



frame, without a board on side 
or roof, was the editor's desk 
and sanctum. When we re- 
turned, we saw a ' notice,' stat- 
ing that the editor had removed 
his office from under the elm 
tree to the corner of ' Broad- 
way and the Levee.' This 
Broadway was, at that time, much broader than the streets of old 
Babylon ; for, with the exception of the fort, there was probably 
not a house on either side for thirty miles." Lawrence was a city 
of tents. Two Massachusetts women had opened a boarding- 
house upon the hill. " In the open air, on some logs of wood, 
two rough boards were laid across for a table, and on wash-tubs, 
and kegs, and blocks, they and their boarders were seated at their 
meal." 

Meanwhile disturbances had occurred at the elections. Mis- 
souri, which lay neighbor to the scene, had sent over men who 



474 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1855-9. 

simply voted and then returned across the river. As the result, a 
pro-slavery government was organized at Lecompton. The free- 
State inhabitants refusing to take part in this, established an anti- 
slavery one at Topeka. Soon there were two sets of authorities. 
Civil war ensued. " Jay-hawkers " harried the country. Murders 
were frequent. No one dared to travel a public highway without 
an escort. The exploits of the famous partisan leaders, John 
Brown, Montgomery, Hamilton, Law, and others, make a page of 
our history which one would gladly pass over in silence. The 
deeds of horror recorded therein give a fearful import to the 
phrase of the times — " Bleeding Kansas." Thus, May 19, 1858, 
Hamilton, with a small party, entered the little town of Trading 
Post and carried off nine persons. Taking these into a ravine 
called Marais des Cygnes, he ranged them in a line and gave the 
word for his men to fire. Five of the prisoners were killed in- 
stantly. The others feigned death, and so escaped. 

Within five years, six governors— Reeder, Shannon, Geary, 
Walker, Denver, and Medary — attempted the difficult task of 
restoring order in this Territory. Finally, at Wyandotte, July 29, 
1859, Kansas adopted a free constitution, and during the admin- 
istration of Buchanan was admitted into the Union. 

In 1855, William Walker conducted a party of fillibusters 
from San Francisco to Nicaragua, where a rebellion was in 
progress. There he artfully secured his election as president. 
Deceived by his success, hundreds joined his standard. But his 
party was eventually overpowered, many of his men died of dis- 
ease, and, in 1857, the miserable remnant was brought back by 
English and American vessels. 

There had arisen a violent prejudice against foreign-born citi- 
zens, and especially Catholics. Numerous collisions took place in 
consequence. In New York, a ruffian named Baker killed another 
called Poole. The murdered man being an American, and his 
assailant a foreigner, the event was lifted into national import- 
ance. The feeling drifted into politics, and the " Know-Noth- 
ing " organization — a secret society — was formed. Its party cries, 
" Put none but Americans on guard ! " " Let Americans rule 
America ! " caught the popular ear. It carried the elections in 
nearly all the Northern States, and in the spring of 1855 it was 
the only opposition to Henry A. Wise, the Democratic candidate 
for governor in Virginia. In the Old Dominion, however, it was 
so thoroughly defeated, that its prestige began at once to wane. 



1856-7.] 



BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



475 



The contest for Speaker of the House of Representatives hav- 
ing- lasted for two months, with one hundred and thirty-three 
indecisive ballots, a plurality rule was agreed upon, February 2, 
1856, under which Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts was 
elected. He had been a Democrat, but was then an Anti-Slavery 
American or " Know-Nothing. " 

The Democrats in convention at Cincinnati nominated for 
President, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and for Vice-Presi- 
dent, John C. Breckenridge of 
Kentucky. The Americans or 
Know-Nothings put in the field 
for President, Millard Fillmore, 
and for Vice-President, Andrew 
J. Donelson of Tennessee. B^th 
of these parties, in their plat- 
forms, pledged themselves to sus- 
tain the Compromise measures of 
1850 and the subsequent legisla- 
tion of 1854. 

All the opponents of slavery 
unitea under the name of Repub- 
licans. They held a convention 
at Philadelphia, June 17th, and 
selected as their candidate for 
President, John C. Fremont of 

California, and for Vice-President, William L. Dayton of New 
Jersey. 

The election resulted in favor of Buchanan and Breckenridge. 
On the popular vote, they had a minority of nearly four hundred 
thousand, but in the electoral college, a clear majority of sixty 
votes. The Republican ticket received a popular vote of one 
million three hundred thousand. 

James Buchanan was inaugurated the fifteenth President of 
the United States, March 4, 1857. He was born at Stony Batter, 
Pennsylvania, April 22, 1791 ; was graduated at Dickinson Col- 
lege, and soon after prepared for the bar. From earliest man- 
hood he had been in public life, serving as member of Congress, 
Senator, minister to Russia and to England, and as Secretary of 
State. He belonged to the old school of men and politicians ; and 
his age, his varied experience, and acknowledged abilities led the 
people to entertain high hopes of the incoming administration. 




JAMES BUCHANAN. 



476 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1857-8. 

The cabinet was composed as follows : Lewis Cass of Michi- 
gan, Secretary of State ; Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of 
tne Treasury; John B. Floyd of Virginia, Secretary of War; 
Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy ; Jacob 
Thompson of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior ; Jeremiah S. 
Black of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General ; and Aaron V. Brown 
of Tennessee, Postmaster-General. 

A difficulty having arisen in Utah, owing to the unwillingness 
of the Mormons to submit to the decisions of the Federal judge, 
in 1857, Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston, with a sufficient force, 
was sent thither to maintain the laws of the United States. Be- 
fore the arrival of the troops the matter was satisfactorily ad- 
justed, the governor appointed by the President being accepted. 
The army was not withdrawn, however, for two years there- 
after. 

The famous Dred Scott decision at this time added fresh fuel 
to the anti-slavery agitation. Dred Scott was a slave belonging 
to a surgeon in the army, who had taken him and his family 
to reside at Fort Snelling and afterward returned into Missouri. 
Suit was brought for his freedom on the ground of his having 
gone into territory where slavery was prohibited. Judge Taney 
affirmed that negroes were not citizens, and that Congress had no 
power under the Constitution to forbid slavery in the Territories. 
His decision contained the expression that " negroes have no rights 
which the white man is bound to respect," on which the changes 
were rung during the ensuing campaign with great effect. 

Minnesota, the thirty -second State, was admitted into the 
Union May 11, 1858. It was so called from its principal river, 
which bears the Indian name for cloud-colored, or sky-tinted 
water. In 1680, Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan priest, with some fur- 
traders, floated down the Illinois river in a bark canoe, and then 
ascended the Upper Mississippi as far as the Great Falls, to which 
he reverently gave the name of St. Anthony. The region was not 
thoroughly explored until 1766, when Captain Jonathan Carver 
of Connecticut passed a winter among the Indians at the mouth 
of the Minnesota, near what is now New Ulm. This Territory 
belonged to the Louisiana purchase, and followed its fortunes. 
Fort Snelling was built in the summer of 18 19. In 1837, lumber- 
ing was commenced on the St. Croix. The first building on the 
site of St. Paul was erected in 1838. The Territory was organ- 
ized in 1849. After the cession, in 185 1, of the lands held by the 



1859.] BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 477 

Sioux Indians, there came a large influx of emigrants, and the 
country was rapidly settled and developed. 

Oregon, the thirty-third State of the Union, was admitted 
February 14, 1859. The name is supposed to have originated 
from the term orcgano, wild marjoram, which grows profusely on 
the coast. It was originally applied to all the territory on the 
Pacific between 42 and 54 40' north latitude. By the treaty 
with England in 1846, the northern boundary was cut down 
to the 49th degree. The Territories of Washington and Idaho 
were afterward carved out of its extensive bounds. In 1792, Cap- 
tain Robert Gray sailed up the beautiful river which still bears 
the name of one of his vessels, the Columbia. The famous expe- 
dition of Lewis and Clark in 1804 brought back the first intelli- 
gent account of the wonders of the Pacific coast. In 181 1, the 
American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor was presi- 
dent, founded Astoria, the first settlement in the State. Emi- 
gration set but slowly into the Territory until, in 1839, a band 
of Methodist missionaries settled in the Willamette Valley. 

In 1850, Congress passed the Donation Law, which gave three 
hundred and twenty acres of land to every bona fide settler, and 
the same to his wife, on condition of occupying the land before 
December 1st, and remaining upon it four years. An additional 
act gave one hundred and sixty acres to one settling before 
December 1, 1853. Eight thousand claims were registered under 
these laws. Marriageable daughters were probably never in such 
demand as in Oregon during those three years. Girls even of 
fourteen were eagerly sought out, and for some time thereafter 
the Territory had a large proportion of very young wives and 
mothers. 

In the year 1859, an event occurred which, according to the 
stand-point one occupies, appears a deed of philanthropy or 
the act of a lunatic. John Brown had been prominent in the 
guerilla warfare of Kansas, acquiring the title of " Ossawattomie," 
from a desperate defence which he made at that place against a 
party ten times stronger than his own. He had long held the 
idea that he was the destined liberator of the Southern slaves. 
Renting a house about six miles from Harper's Ferry, he col- 
lected guns and pikes, and prepared for his fool-hardy adventure. 
In the night of October 16th, with twenty-one men, he seized the 
arsenal at the Ferry, and arrested the chief inhabitants of the town 
as hostages for the safety of his command. His plan was to arm 



478 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1860. 

the slaves who should rally to his aid, and, taking refuge in the 
mountains, to maintain a partisan warfare. But, like Lopez in his 
descent upon Cuba, he found those whom he had come to aid 
loath to rise at a mere demonstration of force. Not a negro joined 
him. The militia rapidly assembled. Two days after, a body of 
United States marines attacked the arsenal. Brown defended 
himself to the last. " With one son dead by his side, and another 
shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand and 
held his rifle with the other." Ten of his party were killed and he 
received six wounds. He finally surrendered, was tried for' trea- 
son, condemned, and executed. On the way to the gallows, he 
stopped to kiss a little slave-child. 

It shows the feverish state of the public mind, and the positive 
feeling of enmity which existed between the two sections, that in 
the North a certain glamour was thrown about the character of 
Brown and his violation of law and destruction of life ; while at 
the South it was commonly believed that this was only the first 
outcropping of a general plot to incite insurrection among the 
slaves. 

It was all, however, but an indication of a coming tempest, and 
the John Brown raid assumes some character as having been an 
omen such as trouble and conflict, since the world began, have 
always sent out in advance of their definite appearance. 

The Republican party, at its convention at Chicago, May 16th, 
nominated for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, and 
for the vice-presidency, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. It held that 
Congress should prohibit slavery in the Territories. The "Amer- 
icans," who still sustained an organization, under the name of 
the "Constitutional Union" party, met at Baltimore May ioth, 
and put in nomination for the presidency, John Bell of Tennessee, 
and for the vice-presidency, Edward Everett of Massachusetts, 
Its platform was, " The Constitution of the country, the Union of 
the States, and the enforcement of the laws." The Democratic 
delegates assembled at Charleston x\pril 23d. The session was 
continued until May 1st, when there had been fifty-seven ballots 
cast and no choice made. A portion of the convention, dissatis- 
fied with one of the resolutions of the platform approving 
" squatter sovereignty," seceded, and organizing anew, adjourned 
to meet at Richmond, Va., on the nth of June, where it chose 
for the presidency, John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and for the 
vice-presidency, Joseph Lane of Oregon. Those who remained 



1860-1.] 



LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 



479 



adjourned to Baltimore, where, on the 18th of June, they nomi- 
nated for president, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, and for vice- 
president, Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia. The former wing of 
the party believed that Congress should protect the rights of 
slaveholders in the Territories, and the latter that slavery or no 
slavery was a matter which concerned the inhabitants of the 
Territory only. 

The election resulted in favor of the Republican ticket. The 
successful candidates received one hundred and eighty out of three 
hundred and three electoral votes ; their popular vote being one 
million eight hundred and fifty-seven thousand six hundred and 
ten, and for the other three tickets, two million eight hundred and 
four thousand five hundred and sixty. 

The selection of a " sectional President," as Lincoln was called, 
was the signal for immediate action. The leaders at the South 
had always held to the doctrine of 
State rights, maintaining that the 
Union was only an association which 
could be dissolved at pleasure. A 
convention was at once called in 
South Carolina, which passed an 
ordinance of secession December 
24, i860. The other cotton States 
rapidly followed. Mississippi enact- 
ed a similar ordinance on the 9th 
of January, 1861 ; Florida and Ala- 
bama on the nth; Georgia, the 
19th; Louisiana, the 26th; and Texas 
on the 1st of February. 

A Peace Congress, consisting of 
delegates from twenty-one States, assembled at Washington Feb- 
ruary 4th, ex-President Tyler being chosen chairman. The use- 
lessness of all efforts at reconciliation was shown by the fact that 
on that very day a convention was held at Montgomery, com- 
prising delegates from the seven seceded States. There they 
entered into a new compact, which they called " The Confederate 
States of America," and established a provisional government, 
choosing Jefferson Davis of Mississippi for president, and Alex- 
ander H. Stephens of Georgia for vice-president. The Federal 
property in the several seceded States was seized, and every ar- 
rangement perfected for carrying on a separate government. 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



480 CULMINATION OF DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. [1861. 

Ex-President Pierce had assured Davis that if a disruption of 
the Union should come, the fighting would not be along Mason 
and Dixon's line merely, but in the streets of northern cities, 
between the friends and the enemies of the South. It was a preva- 
lent opinion, as expressed by President Buchanan, that, while a 
State had no right to go out of the Union, the government could 
not use coercive measures to keep it in, if, in its sovereign capacity, 
it should decide to go. 

Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston 
harbor, were still held by the United States. The former was 
saved to the North by the promptness of Lieutenant Slemmer, 
and the latter, by Major Anderson. Both of these officers, at the 
first approach of danger, had abandoned their weaker fortifica- 
tions, and thrown themselves with all their forces into strong 
positions, where there was a chance for defence. An attempt was 
made to send supplies to Fort Sumter, but the steamer " Star 
of the West," which was conveying them, was fired upon by 
the Confederates and driven back. 

The whole future of the country depended upon the policy 
and acts of the incoming administration, and its first step was 
awaited with almost breathless interest. 




FORT SUMTER. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

FlfRST YEMR OF THE CIVIL WA(k—i86i. 




JNCOLN left his home in 
Springfield, Illinois, for 
Washington, February u, 
1 86 1. His parting words to 
the people among whom he 
had lived so long and who knew 
him best, were full of solemnity : 
My friends, I cannot sufficiently 
express to you the sadness I feel at this 
moment. To you I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more 
than a quarter of a century ; here my children were born ; here 
one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you 
again. A duty devolves upon me perhaps greater than that 
which has devolved upon any man since the days of Wash- 
ington. He never could have succeeded except for the aid of 



484 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ F ®86?. a ' 

Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I hope 
that you, my friends, will pray that I may receive that Divine 
assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which suc- 
cess is certain." 

On the anniversary of Washington's birthday he stopped at 
Philadelphia to raise a flag over Independence Hall. It was an. 
nounced that he would proceed on the morrow, but the excited 
condition of the populace in Baltimore led many to fear an at- 
tempt at assassination. He, therefore, secretly took the nighl 
train the same eve, and reached the capital early the next morn- 
ing. The inauguration ceremonies on the 4th of March passed off 
quietly under the protection of troops commanded by Lieutenant. 
General Scott. The President, in his address, asserted that the 
United States is not a League, but a Union ; denied the right of 
secession ; and declared his determination to occupy all the places 
belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and the 
imposts. The closing words, read in the light of history, seem 
almost prophetic : " We are not enemies, but friends. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affec- 
tion. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone al] 
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of out 
nature." 

Abraham Lincoln was born in Larue county, Kentucky, Feb- 
ruary 12, 1809. In 1 8 16, his parents removed to Indiana, settling 
in the forest near the present village of Gentryville. As Abraham 
grew up, he aided his father in clearing their new farm. His 
schooling was comprised within a single year. He, however, 
diligently read the few books he could secure — Robinson Crusoe, 
Pilgrim's Progress, ^Esop's Fables, the History of the Unit::! 
States, the Life of Washington, and the Statutes of Indiana. Ax. 
sixteen, he was managing a ferry across the Ohio for six dollars 
per month. Six feet four inches in height, a famous wrestler, a 
good story-teller and stump-speaker, he was already a marked 
character. In 1830, the family emigrated to Illinois, and erected a 
log-house at the north fork of the Sangamon. Here thsy cleared 
fifteen acres of land, young Lincoln splitting the rails for the fences. 
The next year, with some relatives, he built a flat-boat, and car- 
ried a load of goods to New Orleans. During the Black Hawk 
War, he served as captain of a company ; at its close, having been 



March,"! 
1861. J 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



485 




LINCOLN S EARLY HOME IN ILLINOIS. 



discharged in Wisconsin, he made his way home partly on foot 
and partly on a raft down the Illinois river. 

A few years of adventure and incident brought him to the age 
of twenty-five, when he was elected to the legislature. In that 
body he remained four terms, 
twice being the Whig candi- 
date for speaker. He studied 
law at night, borrowing books 
of his friends after office-hours. 
Admitted to the bar, he at once 
became prominent. He was 
sent to Congress in 1846, where 
he opposed the annexation of 
Texas and the war with Mexico. 
His famous " spot resolutions " 
called upon the President to 
inform the nation of the place 
where the Mexicans had " shed 
the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil." In 1858, he 
was the acknowledged leader of the Republican party in the 
State, being nominated for United States Senator in place of 
Stephen A. Douglas. They canvassed the State together, and 
such was the ability manifested in their discussion of the ques- 
tions at issue, that the debate became of national interest. From 
that time Lincoln's life is interwoven with the history of the 
country. 

Lincoln was a representative of the masses. For the first time 
the people had elected to the presidential chair one of their own 
number. He was the product of American institutions. Coming 
up out of the rude life of the frontier, dragged back by poverty 
and social surroundings, he lifted himself by the force of an hon- 
est heart and inflexible will to a place among the few who have 
moulded the national destiny. Genial, sincere, free from vices, 
with a fund of sense, quick to read character, fertile in resources, 
patient of repulse and injury, and steadfast in duty, he took the 
helm amid a tornado that would have swept by the board a 
magistrate guided only by expedients. " Four years of battle- 
days " proved him to be what the nation was slow to perceive, 
the man of his time. 

His first cabinet was composed of William H. Seward of New 
York, Secretary of State ; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Secretary of 



486 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. |"March— April. 

the Treasury; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; 
Gideon Wells of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy ; Caleb B. 
Smith of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior ; Montgomery Blair 
of Maryland, Postmaster-General ; Edward Bates of Missouri, 
Attorney-General. In 1862, Edwin M. Stanton succeeded Mr. 
Cameron; and John P. Usher of Indiana, Mr. Smith. In 1864, 
William Pitt Fcssenden of Maine succeeded Mr. Chase. 

Events were now rapidly hurrying on to the one certain issue, 
war. Officers of the army and navy were daily resigning their 
positions, and accepting commissions from the secession authori- 
ties. March 12, Forsyth of Alabama and Crawford of Georgia 
came to Washington as representatives of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, authorized to settle amicably the disputed questions. 
The Federal authorities refused to recognize them officially ; but 
Seward was in frequent communication with them. 

At Washington all was doubt and uncertainty. There was no 
declaration of policy. The authorities feared to act lest they 
should precipitate the strife. As yet only the seven cotton States 
had seceded, but the eight remaining slave States threatened to go 
out if coercion were employed. So the tide was left to drift on 
as it would. There were no preparations for war, and few seemed 
to think an armed conflict possible. In striking contrast to this 
indecision, the Confederate government was taking the most vig- 
orous action, gathering troops and collecting supplies. It had 
a plan, and pursued it steadily. All the utterances of its chief 
men indicated a determination that nothing could shake. What 
they called the " League of the States " was broken, and they 
neither wanted nor would accept any mending of the severed 
links. General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, in command at Charles- 
ton, was throwing up batteries before Sumter, and even practic- 
ing his gunners in getting the range, the shells bursting over and 
around its walls. 

The Washington authorities, after a month's hesitation, finally 
directed a fleet to carry provisions to that beleagured fortress. 
This being announced to the Confederate government at Mont- 
gomery, orders were at once sent to General Beauregard to de- 
mand of Major Anderson a surrender. Upon his refusal, fire was 
opened from all the forts and batteries. The first gun of the war 
was discharged at half-past four o'clock Friday morning, April 
1 2th, the match being held by Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, a white- 
haired old man who had been a personal friend of Calhoun. At 



April 12, 13,1 
1861. J 



ATTACK ON SUMTER. 



4 8 7 



seven o'clock, Captain Abner Doubleday fired the first shot in 
defence of the Union. The bombardment lasted thirty-four hours. 
The walls of the fort were seriously injured, and the main gates 
destroyed ; ihe barracks having caught fire, the magazine was so 
surrounded by the flames that Anderson ordered the powder to 
be thrown into the sea. The garrison, only sixty-four in all, worn 








lip 

attack on fort sumter from morris island.— (From a Sketch taken by an Eye-witness.} 

out by labor, choked and blinded by smoke, having well-nigh 
exhausted their ammunition, and with no food except salt pork, 
were forced to surrender. They were permitted to march out 
after firing a salute of fifty guns to the flag before hauling it down. 
Strange to say, though forty-seven heavy guns and mortars had 
played incessantly upon the works, throwing two thousand three 
hundred and sixty shot, and nine hundred and eighty shells, not a 
man had been injured. 

The news of the first shot fired upon Sumter stirred the nation 
like an electric shock. All hesitation vanished, and people at 
once took sides for or against the Union. The peace-makers 



488 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Apr i86L ay ' 

were put down, and the voice of reflection was silenced. At the 
South, the Union men were overwhelmed by the war party, and 
the violent secessionists took control. At the North, Republi- 
cans and Democrats combined for the support of the government. 
Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand troops ; it was 
answered by three hundred thousand volunteers eager to enlist. 
Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee now linked 
their fate with the Confederacy. 

It soon became evident that Virginia would be the battle-field 
of the war. The Confederate capital was removed to Richmond. 
Virginian troops seized the United States armory at Harper's 
Ferry, and the Navy- Yard near Norfolk. Lieutenant-Colonel 
Robert E. Lee, General Scott's favorite aid, and son of " Light- 
horse Harry," threw in his fortunes with his native State, and was 
at once put in charge of her military forces. Regiments were 
pushed forward from the South, and in the early summer there 
were in the Old Dominion nearly fifty thousand men under arms. 

Meanwhile, Northern soldiers were hurrying to the defence 
of the national capital. On the 19th of April, a Massachusetts 
regiment was mobbed while passing through Baltimore, and 
several men were killed. Thus the first blood of the civil war 
was shed on the anniversary of Lexington and Concord. For a 
time Washington was isolated from the nation. The famous 
Seventh regiment of New York, and General Butler with the 
Eighth Massachusetts, landed at Annapolis, seized and repaired 
the railroad, and moved on toward the Potomac. Finding a 
wrecked locomotive, Butler asked if any one could put it right. 
" I can," said one, " because I made it." In fact, these men 
represented every trade and art, and could do any work required. 
Other regiments followed. May 10th, Baltimore was occupied 
by the Federal troops, and regular communication with Wash- 
ington was re-established. The secession fever in Maryland 
rapidly diminished. Kentucky refused to go out of the Union, 
but proclaimed a strict neutrality. Both sides soon invaded the 
State, and it was torn with civil strife. 

To ensure the safety of Washington, Arlington Heights were 
seized, and Colonel Ellsworth with his Zouaves took possession 
of Alexandria. Seeing the Confederate flag flying from the roof 
of a hotel in that place, he went up stairs and tore it down. While 
descending, he was shot by the landlord, who in turn fell by the 
hand of a private soldier. Fortress Monroe was strongly gar- 



1861.] WAR IN WEST VIRGINIA AND MISSOURI. 489 

risoned, thus securing this depot and the entrance to the Chesa- 
peake. The Confederate troops under Magruder were driven 
from Hampton, and some negroes being captured they were 
declared by General Butler " contraband of war," whence arose 
the popular appellation, " contrabands." Soon after, a Federal 
detachment sent against Big Bethel was repulsed, with the loss 
of the gallant Major Winthrop, a promising young author, who 
was shot by a North Carolina drummer boy. 

The part of Virginia lying west of the Alleghanies was strongly 
Union. When the secession ordinance was passed, a convention 
was held at Wheeling, which decided that West Virginia should 
secede from the commonwealth and establish a new State. Con- 
federate and Union troops poured in, and soon the novel par- 
adox was presented of a seceded State resisting secession, and 
a nation then at war to prevent secession itself fighting to up- 
hold it. The battles of Philippi, Rich Mountain, Carrick's Ford, 
Carnifex Ferry, and Cheat Mountain, gave the Federalists con- 
trol of the State. West Virginia was ultimately admitted into 
the Union, June 20, 1863. 

Governor Jackson made vigorous efforts to carry Missouri into 
the ranks of the disunionists. Captain, afterward General, Lyon, 
in command of the regular troops, foiled his design, broke up a 
secessionist camp near St. Louis, saved the United States arsenal 
in that city, and afterward defeated Colonel Marmaduke at Boone- 
ville. Missouri soon became the battle-ground of the contending 
parties at the West. " No less than sixty battles and skirmishes 
were fought on its soil during the year." Troops being pushed up 
from Texas and Arkansas under McCulloch and Price, the Feder- 
alists were defeated at Carthage and Wilson's Creek, and Colonel 
Mulligan was forced to surrender the national garrison at Lexing- 
ton. Lyon was killed in the second-named encounter while gal- 
lantly heading a charge. 

General Fremont, who was then appointed to the command of 
the western department, was a popular officer, but he was not in 
harmony with the government, and he had confiscated the prop- 
erty and the slaves of those in arms against the United States. 
Just as he was on the eve of a battle at Springfield, he was re- 
placed by General Hunter, who, in turn, was quickly superseded 
by General Halleck. The skill of the latter officer, with the aid 
of such men as Sigel, Blair, and others, in a measure restored the 
Union supremacy. 



490 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [18(51. 

In December, Brigadier-General Grant first came into notice. 
He led an expedition down the river from Cairo to break up, at 
Belmont, a Confederate encampment of troops who had crossed 
over from Kentucky under General, formerly Bishop, Polk. At 
the moment of success, reinforcements being received by the 
enemy, Grant was forced to retreat. 

By midsummer, Scott had collected and organized at Washing- 
ton a considerable army. The North grew impatient of delay, 
and the cry of " On to Richmond ! " was echoed on every side. 
Many of the troops were enlisted for only three months, and it 
seemed desirable to make some use of their services before they 
returned home. Accordingly, about the middle of July, the 
Grand Army of the Potomac, under General Irvin McDowell, 
was sent out to attack the main Confederate force commanded 
by General Beauregard at Bull Run near Manassas Junction. 
The two armies were about the same strength, thirty thousand 
men. 

McDowell's plan was for Heintzelman's and Hunter's divisions 
to cross at Sudley's Spring Ford and turn the Confederate left ; 
while Tyler'** division was to make a feint at the stone bridge in 
front, and at the proper moment to cross over and finish the vic- 
tory. The troops started at half-past two o'clock, Sunday morn- 
ing, the 2 1 st. But they had to force their way along foot-paths 
and unused roads, and the attack did not begin until after ten 
o'clock, when they were already weary with the march of many 
miles and oppressed by the heat of a sultry day. Notwithstand- 
ing, they went into this, their first battle, gallantly. The Con- 
federates were steadily driven back, the bridge was cleared, and 
Tyler's men crossed. The enemy's left wing was routed, and the 
first stage of the battle was over. Then came the second. The 
Confederates rallied on a plateau a mile and a half in rear of their 
first line. Here they were reinforced by General T. J. Jackson's 
brigade. General Bee, rushing up to Jackson, said, " They are 
beating us back." " Well, sir, we will give them the bayonet," 
was the calm reply. Turning to his men, Bee shouted, " There's 
Jackson standing like a stone wall ! " " From that time," says 
Draper, " the name he had received in a baptism of fire displaced 
that he had received in a baptism of water, and he was known 
ever after as ' Stonewall Jackson.' " Generals Johnston and Beau- 
regard now galloped on the field. The former seized the colors 
of the Fourth Alabama and offered to head a charge ; the latter 



July 2I,-| 

1861. J 



BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 



49 1 



leaped from his horse and, turning to his men, exclaimed, " I am 
come to die with you!" Around the plateau the battle surged 
with varying success. The Confederates had brought every man 
and gun into the contest. The Union troops had gained the 
plateau, been swept away, but had regained a footing on the crest. 
The supreme moment had come. 




GENERAL " STONEWALL " JACKSON AT THE HEAD OF HIS BRIGADE. 

The battle had reached the third stage. It was, however, 
already decided, and that away in the Shenandoah Valley. Gen- 
eral Patterson had been sent there with twenty thousand men to 
watch General Joseph E. Johnston's command at Winchester. 
His antagonist, proving too wary for him, escaped with a large 
part of his force, and reached Beauregard in time to take part 
in this struggle. On this eventful afternoon, Kirby Smith, with 
the residue of Johnston's army, was approaching Manassas by rail. 
Hearing the sound of a heavy battle, he stopped his engine, and 
hurried thither across the fields. And now, at the crisis of the 
contest, he suddenly fell upon the Union flank. ''Here's Johnston 
from the Valley ! " was the cry that ran down the ranks. The 
battle that seemed so nearly won, was lost in a moment. The 
ranks broke, and soon the field was blue with fugitives. As 
the crowd converged upon the bridge over Cub Run in the rear, 
a shell burst among the wagons and overturned a caisson. The 
j-oad was blocked and the panic-stricken soldiers became wild 



492 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [, J ^f; 

with terror. All organization was lost ; traces were cut ; cannon 
abandoned ; ambulances emptied of their wounded ; and guns and 
equipments thrown away. Horse, foot, artillery, and wagons be- 
became inextricably entangled. Mounted men put spurs to their 
steeds and plunged through the struggling mass. Congressmen 
and ladies who had come out to see the fight, and officers and 
privates who had run from it, streamed over the country breath- 
less with haste and speechless with fright. Many never stopped 
till they were safe over the Long Bridge. 

Intense was the chagrin of the fugitives when they found that 
there had been no active pursuit by the Confederates. The Union 
rear-guard, an entire division which had taken no part in the bat- 
tle, covered the retreat and fell back in good order. The Con- 
federate leaders were much blamed at the South for not making 
an immediate advance upon Washington. The reasons afterward 
given by General Johnston in vindication of their policy show 
that it would have been a most hazardous undertaking, and one 
ardently to be desired by the Union army. The Federal loss was 
about three thousand, and the Confederate, two thousand men. 

The effects of this battle were singular. The vanquished 
reaped all the real advantage. " The victory," said Johnston, 
" cost us more than the defeat did our antagonists." " It was the 
greatest misfortune," declares Pollard, " that ever befel the South- 
ern Confederacy." The phrase, " One Southerner is equal to five 
Yankees " became current. The war seemed ended, and crowds 
left the army for home. The new government was considered to 
be established, and a strife began over the location of the capital, 
Nashville offering as a bait a costly presidential mansion. At 
first, the North was chagrined and disappointed, but it soon ral- 
lied with a more earnest determination. The march to Rich- 
mond was seen to be something more than a mere holiday pro- 
cession of the military. While the streets of the capital were 
crowded with stragglers, the House of Representatives unani- 
mously passed the following : "Resolved, That the maintenance of 
the Constitution, the preservation of the Union, and the enforce- 
ment of the laws, are sacred trusts which must be executed ; and 
no disaster shall discourage us from the most ample performance 
of this high duty." Five hundred thousand men and five hundred 
million dollars were voted to carry on the war. The successes of 
General McClellan in West Virginia having won him the confi- 
dence of the people, " The Young Napoleon," as he was popu- 



1861.] WAR ON THE SEA AND COAST. 493 

larly called, was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac. 
Soon after, General Scott, on account of increasing infirmities, re- 
signed, and McClellan took his place at the head of the forces of 
the United States. 

No military action of importance occurred in Virginia during 
the rest of the year. October 21st, a Federal reconnoitering de- 
tachment was overwhelmed at Ball's Bluff and forced down the 
slippery banks, where, the old scows used for crossing the river 
being sunk, half the troops were cut off. Among the killed was 
Colonel Baker, United States Senator from Oregon. Late in 
December, General E. O. C. Ord, in command of a foraging 
party, was successful in a severe skirmish at Dranesville. 

The war was vigorously waged by sea and along the coast, 
from the beginning. Soon after the breaking out of hostilities, 
President Lincoln declared the Southern ports blockaded. The 
American navy was small, and at this time the Brooklyn was the 
only efficient vessel at hand for use. Ships were rapidly fitted 
out, and soon armed squadrons were watching along the entire 
Southern coast. They were not able, however, to hermetically 
seal a shore whose length exceeded three thousand miles, with 
many inlets and intricate approaches, and vessels continually ran 
the blockade. 

The Confederate government had issued letters of marque, 
authorizing ships upon the high seas to prey on Northern com- 
merce. In June, the privateer Savannah escaped from Charleston, 
but took only one prize before she was captured by the United 
States brig Perry. The next month the Petrel, a former revenue 
cutter, also from Charleston, got to sea, and soon bore down 
upon a ship which she took to be a lumbering old merchant- 
man. In truth, it was the frigate St. Lawrence, with port-holes 
closed and men concealed below. The Petrel eagerly pressed 
on in pursuit, and finally opened fire upon the innocent-looking 
craft. Suddenly the St. Lawrence revealed her true character, 
and poured a broadside into the saucy privateer which sunk her 
ere all her crew could be rescued. The most successful of the 
privateers was the Sumter, Captain Semmes, which got safely out 
of New Orleans, July 1st. Semmes made several captures, was 
entertained by Confederate sympathizers at Nassau, and finally 
reached the Bay of Gibraltar. Here he was blockaded by the 
United States steamer Tuscarora until he sold his vessel in despair. 

A combined naval and land expedition under Commodore 



494 FIRST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. { Au * ?£^ l i ov ' 6 ' 

Stringham and General Butler, August 29th, seized the forts at 
the entrance of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. Later, a second 
and larger expedition commanded by Commodore Dupont and 
General T. W. Sherman, after a severe bombardment, captured 
the earthworks at Port Royal entrance and Tybee Island, South 
Carolina. During this engagement the ships described a circle 
between Forts Beauregard and Walker, each vessel delivering its 
fire as it slowly sailed by, then passing on, while another took its 
place. The line of this circle was constantly changed to prevent 
the Confederate cannoneers from getting the range of the vessels. 
The troops, dismayed by the terrible fire, escaped to the woods, 
and thence to Charleston. The neighboring planters followed, 
and when Sherman took possession of Beaufort soon after, he 
found " only one white person there, and he was drunk." 

The foreign relations caused both governments great anxiety. 
England and France quickly issued a proclamation of neutrality, 
but acknowledged the Confederates as belligerents, while the 
United States insisted that they should be cons dered as insur- 
gents. After the battle of Bull Run, the recognition of the Con- 
federacy by the European powers was considered at the South 
almost certain, especially as England suffered so greatly from the 
stoppage of the cotton supply. Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who 
were appointed commissioners to the foreign courts, having run 
the blockade, took passage at Havana on the Trent, an English 
mail-steamer. The next day, Captain Wilkes, of the United States 
steamer San Jacinto, intercepted the Trent and captured the 
envoys. On the reception of the news, the British government 
began at once to prepare for hostilities. The United States 
authorities, however, promptly disavowed the act, which, in fact, 
was directly opposed to the principles of the war of 1812, and 
surrendered the commissioners. The threatening cloud of foreign 
intervention was thus brushed away. 




THE SAN JACINTO INTERCEPTING THE TRENT. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

SECOJJ® YEJCk OF THE CIVIL WJtt—1862. 

cCLELLAN had shown great 
ability in organizing the men and 
material poured out so lavishly by 
the North. The Army of the Po- 
tomac, February 1st, numbered 
over two hundred and twenty 
thousand troops, admirably 
equipped. During the fall and 
early winter, the weather was 
excellent, and everybody expect- 
ed an advance. None was made. 
The phrase "All is quiet on the 
Potomac " became a proverb. 
The President, impatient of this 
delay, gave expression to the common expectation of the country 
by his order of January 27th, directing that on Washington's birth- 
day there should be a " forward march " of all the troops of the 
United States. 

During the preceding ye&.-, che war had been carried on 
entirely at random. Henceforth the movements of the armies 
were more in accordance with a definite plan. Three objects 
were kept prominently in view. These were the opening of the 
Mississippi River, the enforcement of the blockade, and the cap- 
ture of Richmond. 

At the West, the Confederates had a line of defence extending 
From the Mississippi to the Cumberland Mountains. The right 
was at Mill Spring and Cumberland Gap, and the left at Colum- 
bus, which was so strongly fortified that it was called the Gibral- 
tar of America. Forts Donelson and Henry held the Tennessee 
and Cumberland Rivers. A force at Bowling Green protected 
the railroad southward to Nashville. General Halleck, in com- 
mand of the western troops, adopted the plan of piercing this line 



496 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Ja i862. b " 

at the centre, thereby forcing the evacuation of Columbus. He 
would thus open the way to Nashville, recover a part of the Mis- 
sissippi, and finally threaten the Memphis and Charleston rail- 
road, the great route between the eastern and western parts of 
the Confederacy. 

The western armies, with the ardor so characteristic of the 
people, were ready to march long before the time fixed by the 
President. General George H. Thomas opened the campaign, 
January 18th, by repulsing a dashing Confederate attack at 
Logan's Cross Roads. This was followed by the evacuation of the 
si:rong position at Mill Spring. Commodore Foote, with a fleet 
of gun-boats and transports carrying seventeen thousand men 
under General Grant, left Cairo February 2d, and ascended the 
Tennessee. The troops disembarked about four miles below Fort 
Henry, and marched up both banks of the river, while the fleet 
bombarded the fort. Under the terrific rain of bombs and balls, 
the place soon became untenable. General Tilghman, having sent 
away his garrison to Fort Donelson before the arrival of Grant's 
army, gallantly resolved to sacrifice himself to secure the retreat 
of his men. He remained behind with a mere handful of artiller- 
ists, manning his guns until defence was hopeless. He then hauled 
down his flag, surrendering at discretion. During the action, a 
shot tore through the side of the steamer Essex and pierced her 
boiler. The vessel was instantly filled with steam, which killed 
both the pilots at their posts and severely scalded Captain W. D. 
Porter and nearly forty of his crew. 

Commodore Foote, with his fleet, then returned to the Ohio 
and came up the Cumberland River, while Grant crossed over by 
land to co-operate in the reduction of Fort Donelson. This was 
a large field-work, covering one hundred acres and mounting 
sixty-five guns. It crowned a bluff one hundred feet high, which 
commanded the river for a distance of two miles. On the land 
side was a line of rifle-pits and batteries, protected by abattis and 
interlaced brush, extending along the wooded hills two and one- 
half miles. 

On the 13th, soon after Grant's arrival, McClernand's division 
assaulted a battery, but was repulsed. A bitter storm of hail and 
snow came on at dark, but the hardy western troops lay down in 
line of battle with no fires nor tents, and many of them with no 
blankets. The wounded who could not crawl off were left in the 
narrow space between the two armies, where their piteous cries 



F |862?'] CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON. 497 

were heard through the night. The next afternoon, the gun- 
boats, moving up to within three hundred yards, engaged the 
water-batteries. The plunging fire from the bluff, however, told 
heavily. The flag-ship was struck by fifty-nine shots, and the 
crippled boats finally withdrew, the commodore himself being 
wounded. The Confederate works were uninjured, and no one 
in them was seriously hurt. 

So far everything had gone against the Union army, but it had 
received heavy reinforcements, until it amounted to " thirty thou- 
sand, may be forty thousand men." The Confederates, therefore, 
despaired of a successful defence, and General Floyd (Buchanan's 
late Secretary of War) called a council, at which it was decided 
to break through the investment and force a way to Nashville. 
The next morning, an hour before day, having massed his men 
heavily on the left, General Pillow sallied out on Grant's right 
wing, while Buckner made a vigorous attack at the centre. The 
Confederates were successful, and the Wynn's Ferry road lay 
open before them. By some strange fatality, they did not seize 
the object for which they had been fighting. Meanwhile Grant, 
who had visited the fleet to consult with Commodore Foote, 
came upon the field, and seeing that the critical moment had 
arrived, ordered a general advance along the whole line. His 
men swept all before them, recovered the battle-field, and, at the 
left, General Smith secured a foothold on the hill, the very key 
of the fort. A half hour more of daylight, and Donelson would 
have been taken. 

That night the thermometer sank to io° above zero. The 
troops on both sides, with neither fire nor shelter, shivered in the 
pitiless storm, while the ground on which they lay was covered 
with a sheet of ice. But, sadder yet, the wounded by hundreds 
strewed the fields, staining the snow with a crimson tint, and 
slowly stiffening and freezing as the life-current ebbed away. 
General Wallace's men, who were nearest, spent nearly the whole 
night in ministering to the wants of friend and foe. 

Under cover of the darkness, Generals Pillow, Floyd, and 
Forrest escaped from the fort. General Buckner, who succeeded 
to the command of those who disdained to flee, found many of his 
men so exhausted that they fell asleep when standing in line of bat- 
tle, even under fire. In the morning, he wrote to General Grant, 
asking the terms of capitulation. Grant replied that none would 
be accepted except an " unconditional surrender," and that he 
32 



498 



SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



t Feb. -March 
1862. 



" proposed to move immediately upon his works." Buckner had 
no choice, and the garrison accordingly laid down their arms. 

These victories accomplished the result which was expected. 
Bowling Green and Columbus were evacuated. The Confed- 
erates fell back to Corinth, 
the great railroad centre 
for Mississippi and Tennes- 
see, where their forces were 
gradually collected under 
the command of Generals 
Albert Sydney Johnston and 
Beauregard. General Buell, 
in command of the Depart- 




ment of the Ohio, 

dl (JllCe dQVanceQ surrender of fort donelson. 

and took posses- 
sion of Nashville, which became his headquarters. The next move-, 
ment of the Union army was to secure the Memphis and Charles- 
ton railroad, thus cutting off Memphis and recovering another 
section of the Mississippi River. Grant having had some difficulty 
with Halleck, his army was turned over to General C. F. Smith, 
who ascended the Tennessee and encamped at Pittsburg Land- 
ing. This officer fell ill of a mere scratch which he received 
in getting upon a boat, and, his health having been injured by ex- 
posure during the siege of Fort Donelson, died soon after. Mean- 



April 6-7,-] 
1862. J 



BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING. 



499 



while Grant was restored to the command, and Bucl was ordered 
to reinforce him, preparatory to an advance upon Corinth. 

The Confederate generals, detecting this plan, decided to fall 
upon Grant's army before Buell could arrive. They accordingly 
set out quietly from Corinth at three o'clock in the morning of 
April 3d, with about forty thousand men. On Saturday night, 
the 5th, the army lay concealed within three-quarters of a mile 
of the Union pickets. " It would have required a keen eye," 
says the Comte de 
Paris, " to discover 
at the bottom of a 
ravine the only fire 
which had been kin- 
dled in camp ; where 
every one was pre- 
paring in silence, and 
without light, for 
the conflict of the 
next day. Its flick- 
ering flame projected 
on the surrounding 
trees the shadows of a 
few officers wrapped 
up in cavalry cloaks. 
These were the lead- 
ers of the Confeder- 
ate army, assembled 
to discuss the chances 
of the battle which 
was to restore to them the whole valley of the Mississippi ; — 
Johnston, who seemed already to bear upon his gloomy brow 
the presentiment of his approaching death ; Beauregard, full of 
ardor and of confidence, which he was endeavoring to impart to 
the others ; Hardee, the practiced officer, whose European mili- 
tary education invested him with a peculiar authority ; Braxton 
Bragg, as stiff, and even haughty, toward his equals as he was 
stern to his inferiors ; Bishop Polk, who only remembered the 
early years of his youth passed at the West Point Academy ; 
finally, Breckenridge, the politician, very lately Vice-President of 
the United States, an improvised general, who was learning his 
profession in this great and rough school. Their deliberations 
were long. At last the soldiers, who were watching them at 




THE MIDNIGHT COUNCIL OF WAR, 



500 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. Pibm*' 

a distance, saw them separate, and each direct his steps toward 
his own headquarters. 'Gentlemen,' said Beauregard, 'to-mor- 
row we shall sleep in the enemy's camp.' ' The Federal troops 
were scattered over a plateau extending three or four miles back 
from the river. This was cut up with ravines, woods, and a 
very maze of roads and by-paths. It was known that the enemy 
was in force at Corinth, only a score of miles away, and during 
Saturday the woods had been found alive with scouts; yet no 
breastworks had been thrown up ; no abattis, there made so easily, 
had been constructed ; no careful reconnoitering parties sent for- 
ward ; and no efficient system of spies and advance-pickets estab- 
lished. That night the Union army, about thirty-three thousand 
strong, slept in quiet, never dreaming of impending peril. 

Just at daybreak, the pickets were driven in. Close on their 
heels came the shells, and then, pouring at double-quick from the 
w r oods, the Confederate lines of battle. Surprised, but not panic- 
stricken, the Union troops formed their ranks as best they could, 
to meet the shock. Some regiments broke and fled at the first 
fire ; others maintained their ground with the steadiness of vet- 
erans. To resist the desperate attempts of the Confederates to 
turn the Federal right-flank, the Union troops withdrew from 
point to point, until they were more than a mile in the rear 
of their first position. General Prentiss with three regiments, 
becoming separated from the rest of his command, was taken 
prisoner. His division had been organized only eleven days, and 
many of his men had received no ammunition. Sherman, by his 
reckless bravery inspiring his raw troops with his own undaunted 
resolution, held them in place till the middle of the afternoon, 
when he fell back to a new line guarding the bridge, by which 
General Wallace's brigade was expected to arrive from Crump's 
Landing, five miles below. 

There seemed no hope for the Union army. It had been 
pushed to the very edge of the river. Beneath the bluff, at the 
landing, huddled a mass of five or six thousand fugitives, pale, 
trembling, cowardly, whom no entreaties nor menaces could move 
to the aid of their brave companions. One more bold dash, and 
the Confederates would drive all pell-mell into the water. Grant, 
who, as at Donelson, was absent from the field, had arrived at 
eight o'clock, only to find an alreadv beaten army. He then did 
his utmost to reorganize his men and establish fr~sh points of 
defence. At half-past two General Johnston was wounded. He 



Af i862" 7 '] BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING. 501 

still kept his horse, however, and was only taken off to die. It 
was some time ere Beauregard got his troops in hand. Grant 
used this precious delay to the utmost. Scattered guns were 
massed in a semicircle upon a bluff commanding the road to the 
landing. These were worked by volunteers — soldiers, officers, 
and a surgeon. Behind them gathered the troops who yet stood 
firm. In front was a deep ravine, wet and slippery, at the foot of 
which were anchored two gun-boats, the Lexington and the 
Tyler. Just at eve, the Confederates essayed this last obstacle. 
But struggling through the mud and water, torn by musket-ball 
and cannon-shot from above and eight-inch shell from below, few 
reached the brow of the bluff. Just then the advance of Buell's 
army, Ammen's brigade, came upon the field at the double-quick. 
They repulsed the final charge and drove the enemy headlong 
down the slope. 

The Confederates were indeed checked, but they had reaped 
all the substantial fruits of victory. They had taken the Union 
camps, three thousand prisoners, thirty flags, and immense stores. 

All the night of that lurid Sunday, a day sacred to the Prince of 
Peace, the gun-boats threw their enormous shells into the woods, 
where the wearied Confederates were seeking rest. Stragglers 
plundered and reveled in the captured tents, and the wounded, 
gray and blue, lay in their pain. The woods caught fire, and the 
flames, creeping among the leaves and up the dead trunks, gave 
place only to torrents of rain, which so often follow a heavy en- 
gagement. 

The next morning the tide turned. Lew Wallace, whom 
Grant expected to come upon the enemy's flank and decide the 
battle, as Bliicher did at Waterloo, had spent the whole day in 
wandering about to find the Union army ; but he was now on the 
field with five thousand fresh troops. Buell's army, twenty-two 
thousand strong, was in line. The wearied Confederates were in 
no condition to resist their overwhelming attacks. Beauregard, 
contesting, step by step, every tree and ridge, was driven from 
the field. He retired, however, in good order, and, unmolested, 
returned to Corinth. He had lost nearly eleven thousand men, 
and Grant thirteen thousand. 

An eye-witness of this retreat says : " In this ride I saw more 
of human agony and woe than I trust I shall ever again be called 
to behold. The retreating host wound along a narrow and almost 
impassable road. Here was a long line of wagons loaded with 



502 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [^sm!' 

wounded, piled in like bags of grain, groaning and cursing; while 
the mules plunged on in mud and water, the latter sometimes 
coming into the wagons. Next was a straggling regiment of 
infantry, pressing on past the train of wagons ; then a strexher, 
borne upon the shoulders of four men, carrying a wounded 
officer; then soldiers staggering along, with an arm broken and 
hanging down, or other fearful wounds. To add to the horrors 
of the scene, the elements of heaven marshaled their forces — a 
fitting accompaniment of the tempest of human desolation and 
passion which was raging. A cold, drizzling rain commenced 
about nightfall, and finally turned to pitiless, blinding hail. I 
passed wagon-trains filled with wounded and dying soldiers, 
without even a blanket to shield them from the driving sleet and 
hail, which fell in stones as large as partridge-eggs, until it lay on 
the ground two inches deep. Some three hundred men died 
during that awful retreat, and their bodies were thrown out to 
make room for others who, although wounded, had struggled on 
through the storm, hoping to find shelter, rest, and medical care." 

History reveals a page on which, now the " cruel war is over," 
no American can look without a moistening of the eye, a flutter- 
ing of the heart, and a secret pride that we are all one again. 
The " incomparable infantry," as Draper styles them, which so 
nearly snatched the victory from the Union banners on the bloody 
plateau of Pittsburg Landing, exhibited a patient endurance and 
a heroic valor which made them the admiration of the Northern 
soldiers who met them on so many hard-fought fields. In a letter 
written by a lady to a friend after a visit to Camp Douglas, 
Chicago, is a touching description of the appearance of the pris- 
oners taken at Shiloh, as this battle is often called from a little 
church near by : "I have not told you how awfully they were 
dressed. They had old carpets, new carpets, rag carpets, old 
bed-quilts, new bed-quilts, and ladies' quilts for blankets. They 
had slouch hats, children's hats, little girls' hats ; but not one 
soldi ir had a soldier's cap on his head. One man had two old 
hats tied to his feet instead of shoes. They were the most rag- 
ged, torn, and worn, and weary -looking set I ever saw. Every 
one felt sorry for them, and no one was disposed to speak un- 
kindly to them." To read of their sufferings and endurance is 
like perusing a misplaced page of Revolutionary times. 

General Halleck now assumed command of the Union army, 
which was increased to one hundred thousand men, and, by slow 




JJ2£J OPERATIONS ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI. 503 

stages, followed the Confederates. Beauregard, finding himself 
outnumbered, evacuated Corinth, and, May 30th, Halleck took 
possession of that important railroad centre. 

Closely connected with the movements of the army of the Ten- 
nessee were the efforts made to reopen the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi, which the South had carefully fortified at every stragetic 
point from the Ohio to the Gulf, a distance of a thousand miles. 
The Confederates, on retreating from Columbus, fell 
back to New Madrid and Island No. 10. General 
Pope, with the Union forces, descending the Mis- 
souri side of the river, invested the former place 
March 3d. The garrison, however, precipitately i^T^Tro.NT 
abandoned their position, " leaving their supper un- 
touched and their candles burning," and retired to Island No. 10. 
Here they were bombarded by Commodore Foote for three weeks, 
with little effect ; three thousand shells having killed only one man. 
Pope's engineers, meanwhile, were digging a canal twelve miles 
long and fifty feet wide across Donaldson's Point. Half of the way 
was through heavy timber, where the trees had to be cut off four 
feet below the surface of the water. This heavy task was accom- 
plished in nineteen days. Steamboats and barges were then safely 
transferred below the newly-made island, while the Carondelet and 
the Pittsburg ran the batteries. Under the protection of these gun- 
boats, Pope crossed the Mississippi in the midst of a fearful storm, 
took the Confederate works on the opposite bank, and prepared 
to attack the principal fortifications in the rear. The garrison, 
nearly seven thousand strong, finding their retreat cut off, surren- 
dered on the last day of the conflict at Shiloh. 

Commodore Foote then descended the river, and, May 10th, 
defeated the Confederate fleet above Fort Pillow after a desperate 
engagement. In consequence of the retreat of the Confederate 
army southward, that fort was evacuated. The Union gun-boats 
proceeded southward, and, June 5th, off the levee at Memphis, 
engaged the flotilla which defended that city. It was a singular 
combat, recalling the sea-fights of the Romans. A Union ram, 
the Queen of the West, striking the General Price, a Confederate 
ram, sank her at once ; in turn, the Queen was run into by the 
Beauregard, and disabled ; thereupon the Monarch made at the 
Beauregard, and sank her. All the Confederate vessels except one 
were destroyed. Memphis then surrendered, thus giving to the 
Union army the control of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. 



504 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ AU |862 C *" 

General Halleck having been called to Washington, the com, 
mand-in-chief fell to General Grant, who held Memphis, Grand 
Junction, and Corinth. The Confederate army was soon after 
concentrated under Bragg at Chattanooga, Price at Iuka, and Van 
Dorn at Holly Springs. We shall follow the attempts they made 
to break through the rapidly contracting line of the Federal in- 
vestment. The South was determined to reconquer the border 
States, which had been so early lost, and to carry the burdens of 
war beyond her own limits. 

In the latter part of August, General Braxton Bragg set out 
from Chattanooga upon a grand raid into Kentucky. General 
Buell moved northward to Nashville, where, by intercepted de- 
spatches, he learned that Louisville was the objective point of the 
expedition. Then ensued between them a race of nearly three 
hundred miles. At Frankfort, Bragg was joined by Kirby Smith, 
who had marched from Knoxville, routed a Union force under 
General Manson at Richmond, Kentucky, and had then moved 
North as far as Cynthiana, where he threatened to attack Cincin- 
nati, but was repelled by the extensive preparations made by Gen- 
eral Lew Wallace. Bragg was detained by the burning of a bridge 
at Bardstown, and so Buell reached Louisville first. 

The Union army was here heavily reinforced until it numbered 
one hundred thousand, double the strength of the enemy. Buell, 
however, waited to reorganize and get thoroughly ready before 
he moved. Bragg took advantage of the delay to declare Ken- 
tucky a Confederate State ; to appoint a provisional government ; 
and to scour the country, seizing cattle, bacon and grain, break- 
ing open stores and taking the goods on paying for them in Con- 
federate money, and forcing the inhabitants to join his army. 
Buell was at last compelled by the Washington authorities and 
the pressure of public opinion to make a move, when he slowly 
followed Bragg, who as leisurely fell back. At Perryville, Bragg 
fiercely turned upon his pursuers, and a desperate battle was 
fought. In the darkness, however, Bragg retreated, and finally 
escaped with his plunder, which filled a wagon train forty miles 
long. At this juncture (October 30th), General Buell was super- 
seded by General William S. Rosecrans. 

Previous to this appointment, important events had taken 
place within Grant's command. He had sent the veterans of 
Donel'son and Shiloh to Buell's help, and his army was greatly 
depleted. But thinking that Rosecrans, then at Tuscumbia, 




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[^llIhIOe R~[roiZ^y #1 EASTERN REGION 



50 100 




VICINITY OF CHARLESTON S.C 






506 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR L?862^ 

could destroy Price at luka, before Van Dorn could come from 
Holly Springs to prevent, he directed him to make the attempt. 
It proved a bloody failure. Price and Van Dorn thereupon 
united their forces, forty thousand strong, and, October 4th, 
attacked Rosecrans, who had fallen back into Corinth witn only 
half that number. Price's column moved forward in the shape of 
an immense wedge. Its point pierced the Union centre and 
reached Rosecrans's headquarters in the town. But on its sides, 
spread out like great wings, the Federal batteries opened upon 
the right and left. The Confederate troops, cowering before the 
storm, "bent their necks downward and marched steadily to death, 
with their faces averted, like men striving to protect themselves 
against a driving hail." They were flanked on every side, and 
no human courage could stand the tempest. The whole Union 
line finally charged upon them, and a gleaming row of steel swept 
their torn and ragged ranks back to the edge of the forest. 

Van Dorn's attack on the Union left should have been simul- 
taneous with Price's upon the centre, but he was delayed until 
that was repulsed. Twenty minutes after, the Texas and Missis- 
sippi troops made a brilliant charge upon Fort Robinette. 
Steady and unyielding, they advanced to within fifty yards of the 
entrenchments, received a shower of grape and canister with- 
out flinching, and were only driven when the Ohio brigade 
poured a full volley of musketry into their ranks. They were 
then rallied by Colonel Rogers, who led them back through the 
abattis, where, with the colors in one hand and a revolver in the 
other, he sprang upon the embankment and cheered on his men. 
An instant more, and he fell, with five brave fellows who had 
dared to leap to his side. A hand-to-hand struggle ensued with 
bayonets, clubbed muskets, and brawny fists. The charge, how- 
ever, was checked, and the Eleventh Missouri and the Twenty- 
seventh Ohio, jumping over the entrenchments, chased the broken 
fragment of the Southern column back to the cover of the woods. 
The Union army, being reinforced, continued the pursuit for 
forty miles. The Federal loss was about twenty-four hundred, 
and the Confederate more than double that amount. 

We now follow Rosecrans to Nashville, where he concentrated 
Buell's forces after assuming command of that army. He reached 
the city November 10th. It is pleasant to notice that, orders 
having been given to transfer his headquarters on the 9th, the 
general, remembering that it would be Sunday, countermanded 



Oec.,1 
1862. J 



ATTACK ON FORT ROBINETTE. 



507 



them. His example fixed in the minds of his men the very whole 
some idea that the Sabbath should be sacred in war as in peace. 
Rosecrans's efforts to discipline and equip his dilapidated army 
were indefatigable. To one of the men, who gave as an excuse 
for being barefooted that he could not get shoes, he replied : 







HEROISM OF COLONEL ROGERS.— BATTLE OF CORINTH. 






" Can't get shoes ! Why ? Go to your captain and demand what 
you need ! Go to him every day till you get it. Bore him for it ! 
Bore him, bore him, bore him ! Don't let him rest. Let the 
captains bore their colonels; let colonels bore their brigadiers; 
brigadiers their division generals ; division generals their corps 
commanders ; and let the corps commanders bore inc. Til see 
then if you don't get what you want. Bore, bore, bore, until 
you get everything you are entitled to." 

The last of December, Rosecrans moved southward with 



508 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. l^aeH' 

forty-six thousand troops to check Bragg, who was already en 
route upon a second grand foraging tour, with over sixty thousand 
men according to Union accounts, and thirty-five thousand by his 
own. The two armies met near Murfreesborough on the closing 
day of the year. Both generals had formed the same plan for the 
approaching contest. This was to mass his strength on the left 
wing, and with that to crush the enemy's right. The advantage 
clearly lay with the army which struck first. Bragg secured the 
initiative. As the Union left was crossing Stone River to attack 
the Confederate right, the strong Confederate left fell heavily on 
the weak Union right. The shock was as unexpected as it was 
impetuous. Two batteries were taken without firing a gun. 
There was some resistance, but the right was swept away like 
forest leaves in an autumn gale. The blow then fell on the 
centre. Here Phil. Sheridan held the fate of the battle. Out- 
flanked on either side, he wheeled back until his lines finally 
formed a wedge that pierced the advancing column, and could 
not be driven. He broke four charges. He fought until his three 
brigade commanders were killed, his cartridge-boxes emptied, and 
one-quarter of his command lay bleeding and dying, when, with 
fixed bayonets, his men slowly withdrew from the cedar thicket, 
still unconquered and clamoring for ammunition. As they passed 
Rosecrans, for whom they had saved the day, Sheridan said, 
gloomily, " Here's all that's left of us, general." 

Meanwhile, Rosecrans had been busy. With consummate 
skill, he had arranged a new line of battle along the railroad and 
turnpike. The gray-coats soon emerged from the thicket, driving 
a cloud of fugitives before them. Rosecrans's men held their fire 
as was the wont in Revolutionary days. When the Confederate 
columns drew near, there suddenly burst upon them a sheet of 
flame from cannon and musket. Four times they tried to face this 
" burning sirocco," and four times they fell back to the protection 
of the cedars. Late in the afternoon, Breckenridge went across 
the river to make a final assault on the Union left ; but in vain. 

New Year's day 1863, found the two armies still face to face. 
Late in the afternoon of January 2d, Breckenridge's troops, having 
recrossed the river, suddenly emerged from the woods in three 
heavy columns. The tactics of Wednesday were repeated and 
now the Union left was forced to the stream. But as the South- 
erners came within the range of the Federal guns on the opposite 
Dank, their lines were torn with a fire before which they broke 






P 8 e 6 C 2'] OPERATIONS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 509 

and fled. The next night, Bragg retreated, leaving to Rosecrans 
the blood-stained field. This was one of the most fiercely-fought 
battles of the war, the loss being one-quarter of the number 
engaged. 

Meantime, Grant, having been reinforced, had continued the 
task of reopening the Mississippi. His plan was to advance along 
the Mississippi Central Railroad, while Sherman should descend 
the river with Commodore Porter's fleet, and all combine in an 
attack on Vicksburg. Everything was progressing favorably, 
when Van Dorn, by a brilliant dash with his cavalry, December 
20th, captured Grant's depot at Holly Springs, and destroyed 
two million dollars worth of supplies. This broke up the entire 
arrangement. Sherman, ignorant of the disaster, landed on the 
Yazoo River, and made an attack on Chickasaw Bayou, north of 
Vicksburg, but suffered a disastrous repulse. General McCler- 
nand then assumed command, and as the army returned, an ex- 
pedition was sent up the Arkansas River, which captured Fort 
Hindman, January 11, 1863. 

The effort just described to open the Mississippi from the 
North was seconded by a powerful expedition from the Gulf. 
Early in the spring, Captain, afterward Commodore, Farragut, 
with a fleet of forty-seven armed vessels carrying several thou- 
sand troops under General Butler, attempted the capture of New 
Orleans. The mortar boats anchored under the banks and bom- 
barded Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which defended the approach 
to the city by the river. To conceal the vessels, they were dressed 
with leafy branches, which rendered them undistinguishable from 
the green woods. The direction had been accurately calculated, so 
that the gunners did not need to see the points toward which they 
were to aim. For six days and nights they continued to throw 
into the forts about fourteen hundred thirteen-inch shells every 
twenty-four hours. So severe was the fire, that " windows at the 
Balize, thirty miles distant, were broken. Fish, stunned by the 
explosion, lay floating on the surface of the water. Overcome 
with fatigue, the commanders and crews of the bomb-vessels 
might be seen lying fast asleep on deck, w r ith a mortar on board 
the vessel next to them thundering away." The bombs pene- 
trated the ground in and about the forts eighteen or twenty feet, 
and, exploding, lifted the earth high in air. Very little real dam- 
age, however, was done to the works, as the earth fell back to its 
place again. 



5io 



SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TApril 24, 
L I8f" 



1862. 



Finding that this bombardment, terrible as it seemed, was 
really full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, Farragut boldly 
resolved to run the fleet past the defences. The gun-boats were 
accordingly armored extempore by looping two layers of chain- 
cables along the sides, while the boilers were protected by bags 
of sand and coal. The Confederates had closed the river by a 
heavy chain supported on several old hulks anchored in the 
stream. This cable was cut during the night, and the current 
soon opened a passage. At three o'clock in the morning of April 
24th, the ships advanced, pouring grape and canister into the forts 




BIRD S-EVE VIEW OF NEW ORLE 



at short range, and receiving in return heavy volleys from all the 
batteries on shore. After running a fearful gauntlet of shot, shell, 
and the flames of fire-rafts, they next encountered the Confederate 
fleet of thirteen armed steamboats, the steam-battery Louisiana, 
and the iron-plated ram Manassas. The flag-ship Hartford caught 
fire, and was forced on shore ; but the men kept their places at the 
guns, the flames were extinguished, the ship was backed off and 
again pushed to the front. After a desperate struggle, twelve of 
the Confederate flotilla were destroyed, and the Federal fleet then 
steamed up to New Orleans. 

The Southern troops had nearly all been sent to take part in 
the battle of Shiloh, and the city now lay helpless under the Union 
guns. Vast quantities of cotton, together with loaded steamers 



Wg^h.] CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. $11 

and the shipping - of the port, were burned by the Confederate 
authorities. Pollard says: "No sooner had the fleet turned the 
point and come within sight of the city, than the work of destruc- 
tion commenced. Vast columns of smoke darkened the face of 
heaven and obscured the noon-day sun ; for five miles along the 
levee fierce flames darted through the lurid atmosphere. Great 
ships and steamers wrapped in fire floated down the river, threat- 
ening the Federal vessels with destruction. Fifteen thousand bales 
of cotton, worth one and a half million dollars, were consumed. 
About a dozen large river steamboats, twelve or fifteen ships, a 
great floating battery, several unfinished gun-boats, the immense 
ram Mississippi, and the docks on the other side of the river, were 
all embraced in the fiery sacrifice." Amid this scene of dire 
destruction the alarm-bells were perpetually tolling. 

The forts below, being threatened by the troops under Butler, 
soon after surrendered. Farragut then ascended the river, took 
possession of Baton Rouge and Natchez, and, running the bat- 
teries at Vicksburg, joined the Union fleet above. 

The contest in Missouri culminated early in the season. The 
Confederates under General Price, having been roughly handled 
in February by General Pope, had retreated into Arkansas, 
keenly pursued by the Federals under General Samuel R. Curtis. 
Price had been joined by some Arkansas and Texas troops under 
General Benjamin McCulloch. He was also reinforced by Gen- 
eral Albert Pike with a brigade of Indians, and by Major-General 
Van Dorn, who took command of the army, then nearly twenty 
thousand strong. He resumed the offensive, and struck at the 
division of General Franz Sigel in Bentonville. That officer 
retired with great skill upon General Curtis, who concentrated 
his troops in a strong position at Pea Ridge. A desperate strug- 
gle took place March 7th, which lasted all day, the Union troops 
being worsted. The next day Curtis made a new disposition of 
his forces, carrying everything before him until the middle of the 
forenoon, when the enemy suddenly disappeared from the front. 
So skillfully was the retreat conducted by obscure ravines, that it 
was afternoon before the Federal officers could find out what road 
Van Dorn had taken. The Union loss was about thirteen hun- 
dred ; the Confederate could not have been less, and included 
Generals McCulloch and Mcintosh killed, and Generals Price 
and Slack wounded. Soon after this, both the Union and Con- 
federate armies were weakened by detachments sent to take 



512 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1862. 

part in the terrible struggle going on in Tennessee. No import, 
ant battles, therefore, occurred either in Arkansas or in Missouri. 
There were some minor engagements, but they had little effect on 
the issue of the war. The whole country, however, was harried 
by guerilla bands, which plundered friend and foe alike. Mis- 
souri became a land of desolation and death. 

As this was the only appearance of the Indians on the battle- 
fields of the war, it is interesting to notice their behavior. It is 
said that the white officers had great difficulty in keeping them in 
order, and that their principal service was in consuming rations. 
They were greatly alarmed by the guns which ran around on 
wheels, by the falling of the trees behind which they had taken 
shelter, and by the roar of battle which drowned their loudest 
war-whoop. 

During the winter of 1 861-2, another important step was taken 
toward the enforcement of the blockade along the Atlantic coast. 
General Burnside, with eleven thousand men, and Flag-Officer 
Goldsborough, in command of the fleet, conducted an expedition 
against Roanoke, memorable as the scene of Raleigh's lost colony. 
This island was the key to the rear defences of Norfolk. " It 
unlocks," said General Wise, " two sounds, eight rivers, four 
canals, and two railroads;" and commands the seaboard from 
Capes Henry to ITatteras. The Confederate forts were captured 
February 8th, and their fleet was destroyed. Elizabeth City and 
Newbern were occupied. Finally, on the very day Farragut 
appeared before New Orleans, Fort Macon, at the entrance to 
Beaufort harbor, was taken. The coast of Upper North Caro- 
lina, with its intricate network of water communication through 
Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, fell into the Union hands ; while 
the blockading squadron secured a convenient depot of supplies 
and a safe rendezvous from storms. 

Port Royal, which was captured in the autumn of 1861, 
became during this year the base of operations against Florida 
and Georgia. These States had been denuded of their strength 
to reinforce the Confederate armies, the former alone having fur- 
nished ten thousand men. They, therefore, became an easy prey 
to the powerful expeditions which were sent against them. 
Fernandina, Fort Clinch, Jacksonville, Darien, and St. Augustine 
were captured. 

In the spring, General Quincy A. Gillmore laid siege to Fort 
Pulaski. The walls of this stronghold were seven and a half feet 



M |862. 8 '] THE MONITOR AND MERRIMAC. 513 

thick, and the Union batteries were a mile, and some two miles 
away. Yet the pointed balls from the rifled guns penetrated from 
twenty to twenty-six inches into the masonry, and honeycombed 
it completely ; while the solid ten-inch shot, pounding like trip- 
hammers, knocked out the loosened pieces. In fifteen hours n{ 
fighting, the fort was compelled to surrender. This capture 
effectually closed the port of Savannah. At the end of the year. 
every city of the Atlantic sea-coast, except Savannah, Charleston, 
and Mobile, was held by the Federal armies. 

We now turn from the minor operations, as it were, of the fleet, 
to the great naval event of the war. When the United States 
navy-yard at Norfolk was abandoned, the steam-frigate Merrimac, 
the finest in the service, was scuttled. The Confederates after- 
ward raised her, razeed her deck, and fitted her with an iron prow 
and a sloping roof plated with four and a third inches of iron. 
She was christened the Virginia, though still generally known as 
the Merrimac. About noon, March 8th, the last day of the 
desperate struggle at Pea Ridge, this strange craft, looking not 
unlike a great house sunk in the water to its eaves, steamed 
out into Hampton Roads. She was convoyed by several gun- 
boats. Disdaining to fire a shot, she steered directly for the sloop- 
of-war Cumberland, whose terrific broadsides glanced harmlessly, 
like rubber balls, from the monster's iron roof. Her sharp beak, 
striking squarely under the bow, made a hole large enough for a 
man to enter. This terrible blow disabled the Cumberland, but 
her heroic crew continued to work their guns, until the vessel, 
with all on board, plunged beneath the water. Her flag was never 
struck, and floated from her masthead after the ship had gone to 
the bottom. 

Warned by the fate of his companion, the captain of the frigate 
Congress, on the approach of the Merrimac, ran his vessel ashore ; 
but the iron-clad, taking a position astern, deliberately fired shells 
into her till the helpless crew was forced to surrender. Mean- 
while, the steam-frigate Minnesota, coming to the relief of her 
consorts, grounded. Exposed to the fire of the gun-boats and an 
occasional shot from the Merrimac, she lay at the mercy of her 
foes. The Merrimac, at sunset, returned to Norfolk, awaiting, 
the next day, an easy victory over the rest of the Union fleer. 
All was now delight and anticipation among the Confederates ; ail 
was dismay and dismal forebodings among the Federals. 

That night the Monitor arrived in the bay, after a tedious 
33 



514 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ M |862 * 

voyage from New York, where she had been building, in order to 
meet the long-expected Merrimac. This " Yankee cheese-box on 
a raft," as it was called, was the invention of Captain Ericsson. It 
was the hull of a vessel with the deck a few inches above the water. 
The upper part, which was exposed to the enemy's fire, projected 
several feet beyond the lower portion, and was made of thick white 
oak covered with iron plating five inches thick on the sides and 
one inch on deck. In the centre of the ship was a curious 
round, shot-proof tower, made to revolve slowly by machinery 
connected with the engine, thus turning its two heavy guns in 
every direction. 

Sunday morning dawned, bright and beautiful. Heedless of 
its sanctity, the Merrimac again appeared to complete the destruc- 







NAVAL DUEL BETWEEN THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC. 

Hon of the Minnesota. Suddenly, from under the lee of that ship, 
the Monitor darted out, and hurled at the monster two one hundred 
and sixty-six pound balls. Startled by the appearance of this 
unexpected and queer-looking antagonist, the Merrimac poured in 
a broadside, such as the night before had destroyed the Congress ; 
but the balls glanced off the Monitor's turret, or broke and fell 
in pieces on the deck. 

Then began the battle of the iron ships. It was the first of 
the kind 'in the world. Close against each other, iron rasping 
against iron, they exchanged their tremendous volleys. One 
heavy bolt hit the Monitor's turret squarely, but broke and left 
the head sticking in the iron armor. Repeatedly the Merrimac 
tried to run down the Monitor, but her huge beak only grated 
over the iron deck, while the Monitor glided out unharmed ; 
and in return, each time as she slipped away, gave her answer 



JgJ;] THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 5 1 5 

from both the huge eleven-inch guns in her turret. Drawing 
so little water, she nimbly steamed about her adversary on 
every side seeking a weak point to put in a ball. Again and 
again the Merrimac sought to grapple with the Minnesota, but the 
Monitor quickly interposed. At last, despairing of doing any- 
thing with her doughty little antagonist, and being herself some- 
what damaged, the Merrimac steamed back to Norfolk. As she 
drew off, she hurled a parting shot which, striking the Monitor's 
pilot-house, broke a bar of iron nine inches by twelve, and seriously 
injured the eyes of the gallant commander, Lieutenant Worden, 
who was at that moment looking out through a narrow slit and 
directing the fire of his guns. As he recovered his conscious- 
ness, his first words were, " Did we save the Minnesota?" 

The effect of this victory was most important. Had the Moni- 
tor not appeared, the Merrimac would in all probability have 
destroyed the rest of the Union fleet, thence she might have 
ascended the Potomac and laid the Capitol under her guns ; 
steamed to New York and sunk its shipping ; or broken up the 
blockade and made an egress for cotton. A different result might 
have changed the issue of the war. 

The fate of these two historic vessels was strangely mean and 
unworthy. The Merrimac was blown up on the evacuation of 
Norfolk a few months after, and the Monitor foundered at sea. 

Having now traced the war at the west and along the coast, 
we return to the army of the Potomac. McClellan made no 
forward movement on Washington's birthday, notwithstanding 
the general order. It was not till March 10th that his forces were 
set in motion. Through the mud and rain they at last plodded to 
Manassas, only to find to their chagrin that the position had been 
abandoned the day before, and that the entrenchments behind 
which the Confederates had sat for nearly a year were quite in- 
significant, and armed largely with Quaker guns — i. c, wooden 
logs shaped and painted to imitate cannon. By the skillful 
strategy of Johnston, the enemy had escaped without the loss of 
a wagon or a man. 

Against the President's judgment, McClellan had long insisted 
that the easiest way to reach Richmond, the objective point of the 
war at the east, was by the Peninsula. Having gained a reluctant 
consent to execute his plan, the army of the Potomac was rapidly 
transferred down the river, from Washington to Fortress Monroe, 
by a fleet of three hundred and eighty-nine vessels. McClellan, 



5 i6 



SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



r April. 
Ll862. 



being relieved of all responsibility except that of his immediate 
command, left the capital April ist. Having arrived at the for- 
tress, he undertook the second " On to Richmond " movement. 

The Union army was over one hundred thousand strong. The 
troops were full of enthusiasm. Weary of their tedious and 
inglorious encampment around Washington, they were glad to 
take the field. The orders to march the next morning with five- 
days rations were, therefore, heard with cheers, and the exultant 
men heaped high the fires with rails and tree-tops. The camp that 
night presented a beautiful scene — the very poetry of war. The 
new moon hung low in the western sky, and the bright stars 
looked down wonderingly through the soft, pure air. The forest 
trees cast long shadows over stacked arms, and watch fires, and 
pacing sentinels, and groups of boys in blue — some writing home 
to loved ones, some cooking, some burnishing their arms, and 
some cracking the merry jest. Bands of music were playing, and 
through the trees stole, strangely blended, the strains of " Dixie " 
and of "Auld Lang Syne." Hours passed, and one by one the 
stars sank, the fires died away, and the soldiers 
dropped on the grass to rest, until, at last, quiet 

settled down over the 
white city of tents. 

At Yorktown, McClel- 
lan found General Ma- 




MAP OF THE PENINSULA. 



gruder with a Confeder- 
ate division of about five 
thousand men, exclusive 
of small garrisons, de- 
fending a line thirteen 
miles long, reaching en- 
tirely across the Penin- 
sula. Instead of breaking through at some weak point with, his 
overwhelming force, he set his magnificent army down in the 
swamps, to begin a regular siege. Heavy guns were ordered 
from Washington ; miles of corduroy road were built; and the 
open fields were filled with ditches and entrenchments. Mean- 
while, General Joseph E. Johnston had reinforced the Confeder- 
ates with the troops from Manassas; while the Federals, unused 
to the climate, were sickening and dying by thousands. The 
spade was found quite as useful in digging graves as in raising 
fortifications. Just as McClellan was ready to open fire, Johnston 



May B, 

11161'. 



i:.\ i li.lv OF wil.l.lAMSiiii RG 



5'7 



; M 




BUILDING A i iikiiiiiiiiV ROAD rHBOUGH A hWAMI'. 



quietly retired ■ ■ | > the Peninsula toward Richmond. Again, as 
.ii Wini in 'in .mil ai Manassas, he had given his enemy Hi<- .li|>- 

A rapid pursuit was .ii once made. The Confederate real 
guard, aftei ward reinfon < <l by Longstrei t's division, i«>"^ pos I ;ii 
Williamsburg, in ordei i<> gain time i«>i ili<' baggage-trains. Ai 
this point, Fori Magruder, with thirteen redoubts, commanded 
all iin roads leading northward. About half-past five o'clock in 
the morning ol May 5th, General foseph Hooker, " Fighting l<«-," 
.1 in- was < ;ill<-«l, came u|> with his division, and .h om e ordered an 
attack. F01 nine long, bloody hours he continued the struggle. 
iir. ammunition was exhausted, and the living gathered the < •" 
tridgesfrorri the boxes ol the dead. Thirty thousand Union troops, 
many ol them hi line ol battle and anxious to share the danger, 
stood within sound • >i his guns, and yd none ol them wen Bcnl i«> 
his help, in the afternoon, General I 'lnli|> Kearney thi ew his 1 ■ kh 
to the front, and took the brunl ol ili<- struggle. Later, General 
!). N. Couch arrived with his division McClellan came upon 
the field with his brilliant staff aftei the contest was dei ided. 

That nighl the Union 1 1 « >* > | >- , exhausted by ili< day's march 
and fight, lay in the rain and mud, many ol them without food, 
shelter, "i fire. I" the morning, to then surprise, they awoke 



5 18 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [TaSk* 

not to renew the battle, but to find the fort empty. Johnston, 
having accomplished his end, had quietly drawn off his men, and 
they were already out of reach. 

The scene which the field presented upon that bright, sunny 
day was a far different one from that of the happy, starlight 
evening which preceded the Union march up the Peninsula. 
The dead and wounded of both armies lay thick through the 
swamp and the miry road in front of Magruder. The trees 
were scarred by bullets and shells. Knapsacks, haversacks, guns, 
horses and equipments, the wreck of battle, strewed the ground. 
At one point, behind a fence, a hundred dead bodies lay in a 
broad windrow, as they had stood in rank. Here one soldier 
was surrounded by five whom he had slain ere he fell. There 
a man was shot while eating his lunch ; part of the broken bis- 
cuit yet remained in his hands ; over the remainder his mouth 
had stiffened in his sudden death-agony. By the roadside reposed 
a boy apparently not over fourteen ; the lower part of his body 
was buried in the mud, but the rain had washed his upturned 
face, and it looked calm and peaceful, as if, in a quiet slumber, he 
were still dreaming of home and mother. Close by was a strong 
man, stretched at full length, with stiffened limbs and corded 
muscles, as though fighting to the last even against death. 
Another had received the fatal shot while, with extended arm, he 
was in the act of ramming down a ball ; by a strange coincidence 
he had fallen against a tree that supported him in nearly an upright 
position ; and there he stood, still and white, like a grim figure in a 
tableau. A rifleman was biting off his cartridge as the deadly ball 
entered his breast ; he merely pressed more tightly his teeth and 
clutched his fingers over the crumpled paper. Back of a fallen 
tree, seven soldiers, each with a ghastly red spot in the forehead, 
reclined side by side, as if taking a noon-tide rest. 

Fatigue parties were busy burying the dead and bringing in 
the wounded. The latter had often, in their blind fear, crawled 
away into the woods and hidden under the leaves and logs, where 
they were found only by the most careful search, whence, damp 
and mouldy, they were borne in on stretchers. A barn was taken 
as a hospital. The floor was covered with the maimed, whose 
matted hair, soiled garments, and undressed wounds touched 
every heart. By the door were three tables surrounded by sur- 
geons, while cut-off limbs, ragged and torn, lay in heaps upon the 
ground. There was no soft bed, no delicate food, no cooling 



J[|£] BEFORE RICHMOND. 519 



drinks, no tender care ; instead, there were heaps of corn-husks, 
" hard-tack " and salt pork, rough men who could only try to be 
gentle, and, above all, the hot sun pouring on the roof and heating 
the air, alive with groans and shrieks and foul with sickening 
odors. The dead were buried side by side in long trenches, near 
where they had fallen. Over one grave a comrade was seen to 
twine some green boughs, smooth the earth, and then, reverently, 
to place at the head a piece of paper with the name written upon 
it, a simple tribute of a loving heart. 

The next day the scene was strangely changed. High officers 
were gayly prancing by, dashing Zouaves flitting around like 
butterflies, heavy batteries lumbering along the road, brass bands 
discoursing brilliant music ; while long lines of plain blue uni- 
forms and uplifted bayonets led off the eye to the distance, where 
the glittering steel blended into a mass of burnished metal. The 
abattis before Magruder, by some chance, had been fired, and the 
flames had crept over the battle-field, consuming in one funeral 
pyre friend and foe. Dense, black volumes of smoke rolled up to 
the heavens and rested like a pall over that scene of slaughter. 
Beneath, the fire hissed and sparkled, wrapping the unburied 
dead in a shroud of flame, while long tongues leaped out and 
lapped up the dry leaves, or coiled around and crawled up the 
huge pines, which burned and crackled until they looked in the 
heated air like blood-red pillars. 

McClellan, now unopposed, slowly followed the retreating 
army. Nearly two weeks were consumed in marching less than 
fifty miles. This brought the Union advance within sight of the 
steeples of Richmond. In that city all was confusion. The Con- 
federate Congress hastily adjourned. Davis sent his family to 
Carolina, and the trains were crowded with fleeing women and 
children. General Irvin McDowell, who was at Fredericksburg 
with thirty thousand men, was daily expected to reinforce 
McClellan. General Fitz John Porter had been sent out upon the 
Union right, and, after a sharp skirmish, had taken Hanover 
Court-House, in order to facilitate the junction. McClellan was 
apparently only awaiting the advent of this reinforcement before 
making the final and long-anticipated assault upon the Confed- 
erate capital. 

Johnston saw the danger, and, too shrewd to let the blow fall 
as intended, resolved to parry it. Stonewall Jackson, being re- 
inforced, was ordered to descend the Shenandoah and threaten 



520 



SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



pMay-Jun« 
L 1862. 



Washington. This indefatigable officer went down the valley like 
a whirlwind, captured Front Royal, and then dashed after Gen- 
eral Nathaniel P. Banks at Strasburg, who escaped with his men 
across the Potomac only by marching in one day thirty-five miles. 
Washington was thrown into a ferment of excitement. The gov- 
ernment took military possession of all the railroads. Troops 
were called from every direction to save the Capitol. Fremont 
at Franklin, Banks at Harper's Ferry, and McDowell at Freder- 
icksburg, three major-generals and sixty thousand men, were 

ordered to intercept Jack- 
son. But that valiant leader 
was as skillful in retreat as 
he was bold in advance, and 
rapidly fell back, burning 
the bridges behind him. He 
had a slight brush with his 
pursuers at Cross-Keys, and 
another at Port Republic, 
where, dexterously dodg- 
ing between Fremont and 
McDowell, he darted across 
the Shenandoah, and then 
hurried back to take his 
place under Johnston in the 
Peninsula. 

Meanwhile, stirring 
events had transpired be- 
fore Richmond. McClel- 
lan had incautiously pushed his left wing across the Chicka- 
hominy and taken possession of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Just 
then a terrible storm came on, which flooded the swamps and 
turned that sluggish creek into a roaring river. Johnston seized 
the opportunity, and concentrated his army on the exposed wing. 
General Silas Casey's division, which was the first attacked, had 
never before been under fire, and now received the shock of 
nearly double its number of Longstreet's veterans. The first 
warning of the battle was from two rifle-shells, which suddenly 
flew screaming over the camp. The men stood hurriedly to 
arms, as the rapid picket-firing told of the nearness of the danger. 
They gallantly held some slight entrenchments in their front until 
the second line under Couch had time to take position. The 




GENERAL GEORGE B. MOCLELLAN. 



May i86 J 2 U . ne ''] BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS. 521 

Confederates, however, swept all before them, and seemed likely 
to seize Bottom's bridge upon the Chickahominy, and thus en- 
tirely cut off the left wing from the centre. In this moment of 
peril, General Sedgwick's division of Sumner's corps crossed 
upon a tottering log bridge, and hauled over a battery of twenty- 
four Napoleon guns. Following the roar of the cannon, they soon 
came into the thickest of the fight, checked the Confederate col- 
umn, and drove it back headlong upon Fair Oaks station. Just 
at sunset, General Johnston was badly wounded by a shell. The 
loss of their commander was fatal, and, though the Confederates 
renewed the contest the next morning, they were easily repulsed. 
Conspicuous for his bravery in this engagement was General 
Kearney, who had lost an arm at the gates of Mexico. Taking 
his bridle in his teeth and his sword in his left hand, he led his men 
in the most dashing charges. During the thickest of the battle, 

" Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal, 

Asking where to go in — through the clearing or pine ? " 

To which the gallant Kearney, who " snuffed, like his charger, 
the wind of the powder," shouted back, 

" ' Oh, anywhere ! Forward ! 'Tis all the same, Colonel : 
You'll find lovely fighting along the whole line ! ' " 

McClellan made no attempt to follow up his success at Fair 
Oaks. Nearly a month of inactivity succeeded. Almost three 
months had elapsed since he landed at Fortress Monroe. His 
unaccountable delay had given the Confederates time to pass the 
conscription law, enroll troops, and collect the largest force they 
had yet put in the field. General Robert E. Lee, who succeeded 
Johnston in command of the "Army of Northern Virginia," having 
thoroughly fortified Richmond, was anxious to strike a blow 
which should be more telling than the one delivered at Seven 
Pines. General Stuart, with fifteen hundred picked cavalry, was 
accordingly detached to gather information concerning the de- 
fences on the right and rear of the Federal line. This dashing 
officer drove the outposts from Hanover Court-House, destroyed 
a great quantity of stores along the York River railroad leading 
to White House — the Union depot of supplies — made the entire 
circuit of McClellan's army, and, throwing a bridge across the 
Chickahominy, came safely back into camp. He had found 



522 



SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TJune, 
L.I862. 



no works to hinder his march, and Lee's plan was quickly 
formed. He decided to fall with all his strength upon the Union 
right wing at Mechanicsville, while Jackson, now daily expected 
from the Shenandoah, should advance still farther to the left, 
cut off the Federal communications with White House, and then 
attack their rear. 

McClellan, alarmed by the news of the advance of Jackson, 
and disappointed in the non-arrival of McDowell, on whom he 

had counted to strengthen his right 
wing, but who was detained for the 
defence of Washington, resolved to 
abandon the York River railroad 
and " change the base " of supplies 
to James River, seventeen miles dis- 
tant. To do this it was necessary 
for the right wing to hold its posi- 
tion firmly, while the remainder of 
the army, with the trains, forty miles 
long, should traverse the narrow and 
difficult route through the White 
Oak Swamp. 

Ere this movement began, Lee's 
blow had fallen. On the 26th of 
of June, Generals A. P. Hill and Longstreet crossed the Chicka- 
hominy and attacked the Union right at Mechanicsville. The 
contest lasted till nine o'clock at night, when the Confederates were 
repulsed at every point. At dawn the next morning, however, 
General Porter withdrew the Federal forces to a strong position 
at Gaines's Mill, which covered the bridges connecting with the 
main body of the army. In the afternoon, the Confederates 
renewed their attacks. Jackson, having joined them, fell upon 
the Union flank with fearful force. It was only by the most des- 
perate exertions, and by repeated reinforcements, that Porter 
managed to prevent a total rout. That night, under cover of the 
darkness, he retired to the south bank. 

Up to this time Lee had been in doubt as to his opponent's in- 
tentions, whether he would try to hold his position on the north 
bank of the Chickahominy, or, what was most feared, throw all 
his strength into the left wing and suddenly hurl it into Richmond, 
which was but slightly guarded. A retrograde movement being 
now apparent, Lee ordered Jackson to cross the Chickahominy 




GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 



June | 2 862 J . U ' y2 '] TH E SEVEN-DAYS BATTLES. 523 

and press upon the Federal rear, while other columns were pushed 
along the roads which intersected the line of march. 

On Sunday, June 29th, Magruder struck the flank of the " vast 
caravan" at Savage's Station. Here Sumner held the ground till 
dark. Large quantities of supplies were destroyed, and a railroad 
train and locomotive, piled with military stores, was fired and set 
loose on the track, the shells exploding as it flew wildly along, 
and, at last, dashed off the broken bridge into the Chickahominy. 
When night came, abandoning twenty -five hundred sick and 
wounded in the hospitals, the Union troops fell back through the 
White Oak Swamp. 

The next day, Longstreet and A. P. Hill, having passed around 
the swamp, encountered the line of march at Frazier's Farm. 
General McCall's division was then passing. The Confederates 
threw themselves with reckless valor upon the column, but could 
not break it. Jackson coming up on the Federal rear, found 
the bridge over White Oak Creek destroyed, and the crossing 
held by General Franklin. Thus the admirable arrangements of 
McClellan foiled every effort of his adversaries. During the night 
the Union army collected for a final stand at Malvern Hill. 

Here, upon an elevated plateau cleared of trees, about one and 
a half miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, the shattered 
fragments of the army of the Potomac gathered in solid array. 
On the sides of the amphitheatre-like slope the cannon were ar- 
ranged in tier above tier, sweeping every inch of the glacis in 
front, while gun-boats lay on the left, ready to hurl their ponder- 
ous shells upon the advancing enemy. 

The Confederates, flushed with success, repeatedly charged 
upon this impregnable position, but they were repulsed with hor- 
rible slaughter. Strangely enough, under cover of the darkness 
and a fearful tempest, the Union troops were ordered to flee 
like a routed army from their own victory. General Kearney 
echoec 1 the sentiment of many a patriot amid the disorder of that 
midni^nt flight when, rising in his stirrups, he exclaimed, " I, 
Philip Kearney, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against 
this order to retreat. We ought, instead, to follow up the enemy 
and take Richmond. And, in full view of all responsibility of 
such a declaration, I say to you all that such an order can only be 
prompted by cowardice or treason ! " 

The Confederates, staggered by the blows they had received, 
made no further opposition, and the wearied fugitives found rest 



524 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [\a&. 

at Harrison's Landing, where they huddled under the cannon of 
the friendly gun-boats. Lee had raised the siege of Richmond, 
and, with not over seventy-five thousand men, had driven to a 
calamitous retreat an army that, even after all the disasters of 
the seven-days fight, still mustered eighty-six thousand under its 
colors. The losses of this brief campaign had been fearful, cer- 
tainly not less than forty thousand on both sides. 

It was expected that Lee would now march upon Washing- 
ton. McClellan was therefore ordered to transfer his army to 
Acquia Creek, in order to reinforce General Pope, who was sta- 
tioned on the Rapidan in command of the forces collected for the 
defence of the national capital. Lee immediately turned to crush 
Pope before the troops from the James River could reach him. 
Meanwhile, Jackson having been sent forward, defeated General 
Banks at Cedar Mountain, August 9th ; but, unable to maintain 
his position, he fell back upon Lee's advancing army. Pope, per- 
ceiving the fearful odds concentrating upon him, retired behind 
the Rappahannock. Lee thereupon divided his army, sending 
Jackzon through Thoroughfare Gap to march around Pope's 
right wing and destroy his communications with Washington ; 
while Longstreet, with his division, held his attention in front. 

Pope then turned all his strength on Jackson, hoping to cut off 
that redoubtable leader while thus separated from the main body. 
But mysterious causes, among which jealousy has been alleged, 
prevented the Army of the Potomac from co-operating fully with 
Pope, and he found himself at last, August 29th, on the old 
battle-field of Manassas, face to face with the whole Confeder- 
ate army under the firm hand of Lee. The positions of the an- 
tagonists were changed from those of the previous year, and the 
Federals held the ground formerly occupied by the Confederates. 
That very afternoon, says Draper, McClellan suggested to Lincoln 
" to leave Pope to get out of his scrape ; " the President, reading 
the message, fell back in his chair, his honest heart horror-stricken 
at the thought. After two days of fighting, the Federal forces, 
staggering under repeated blows in front and flank, reeled back to 
Centreville. Jackson thereupon set out to turn again Pope's 
right wing. A sharp conflict occurred at Chantilly, September 1st, 
in the midst of a furious thunder-storm. Phil. Kearney, dashing 
forward in advance, met a Confederate soldier, of whom he made 
an inquiry. Seeing his mistake, he wheeled, when the soldier 
fired, and this gallant officer fell mortally wounded. 



Sept. 5,1 
1862. J 



LEE ENTERS MARYLAND. 



525 



" Oh, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly 

That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried ! 
Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily, 

The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride! 
Yet we dream that he still, in that shadowy region, 

Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign, 
Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion, 

And the word still is, Forward ! along the whole Yme."-~Stidmdti. 

Pope steadily 
retired before the 
enemy. Exhausted 
by constant march- 
ing and fighting, 
overwhelmed by 
numbers, destitute 
of ammunition and 
of food, the remains 
of the army at last 
found shelter be- 
hind the entrench- § 
ments at Washing- ^ 
ton. Pope was here Ji^T 
relieved of his com- 
mand and the na- 
tional forces again 
placed under Mc- 
Clellan, who, in spite 
of his failure on the Peninsula, was exceedingly popular with the 
troops. 

Lee, his army flushed with success, now crossed the Potomac, 
and advanced to Frederick, the bands playing the air of " Mary- 
land, my Maryland." That day, September 5th, Bragg entered 
Kentucky on his grand raid. The movements were made in con- 
cert. The North was to be struck at two points simultaneously. 
We have described the result of the western attempt ; the eastern, 
despite its brilliant beginning, proved yet more unsatisfactory to 
the Confederate cause. 

McClellan, rapidly reorganizing the Federal forces, and in- 
spiring them with the enthusiasm of his personal presence and 
influence, once more took the field against his old antagonist. 
Meanwhile, Lee had sent Jackson, with twenty-five thousand 
men, to capture Harper's Ferry, after which he was to rejoin the 




DEATH OF GENERAL KEARNEY. 



526 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [®|g^ 

main body at Hagerstown, preparatory to an invasion of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

McClellan, steadily following Lee, entered Frederick, Septem- 
ber 1 2th, just after its evacuation by the Confederates. Here, by 
a singular piece of good fortune,- he secured a copy of Lee's order 
of march. Put in possession of the plan of his adversary, he saw 
the danger of the garrison at Harper's Ferry. Leaving it, how- 
ever, to its fate, he moved slowly after the main body. At the 
South Mountain Gap, the Confederate rear-guard stubbornly re- 
sisted his progress. But, outflanked, it retreated under cover of 
night, and in the morning the Union army poured into the valley 
beyond. Harper's Ferry was then being surrendered to Jackson. 

Lee, now fairly brought to bay, took a strong position behind 
Antietam Creek. His situation was perilous. Jackson, with a 
large portion of the army, had not yet rejoined him. McClellan, 
however, waited a day, and that gave an opportunity for a part 
of the detached troops to arrive. Even then, Lee had only forty 
thousand against McClellan's eighty thousand. Moreover, half 
his men were in rags, and thousands, barefooted, had traced 
their path thither in crimson ; while on the other side of the 
Potomac was a weary, gaunt, and still more ragged crowd, left 
behind because of inability to keep pace with the rapid progress of 
the army. 

McClellan's plan was for General Hooker to fall upon the Con- 
federate left ; while Burnside, as soon as affairs looked favorable, 
was to carry the bridge over the creek and attack their right. At 
early dawn, Hooker's men made an impetuous rush, driving Jack- 
son's brigades into the woods, where their reserves, lying behind 
rocky ledges of limestone, occupied an almost impregnable for- 
tress. A desperate struggle ensued. Both antagonists were 
nearly destroyed. When the broken fragments were drawn off, 
the windrows of blue and gray showed where the lines of oattle 
had been mowed down by the reaper, death. Reinforcements 
came up ; on the Confederate side, Hood's and then McLaw's 
and Walker's divisions as they arrived from Harper's Ferry ; on 
the Union side, Mansfield's, Sumner's, and finally Franklin's corps. 
As each came on the field, the tide turned, and so ebbed to and 
fro, marking its bloody passage with bruised and mangled 
corpses. It was not till one o'clock in the afternoon that Burn- 
side crossed the bridge. Meanwhile, Lee had been able to con- 
centrate all his force to resist the attack on his left, and now 



Sept. 17,-) 
1862. J 



BATTLE OF ANTIETAM. 



527 



Hill, coming up from Harper's Ferry, easily repulsed this assault. 
The next day, neither commander seemed disposed to renew 
the struggle. That night Lee retired across the Potomac. This 
battle, indecisive as it seemed, had overthrown all his plans for 
an invasion of Pennsylvania. 








STORMING THE BRIDGE AT ANTIETAM. 



Six weeks after the strug- 
gle of Antietam, at the im- 
perative order of the Presi- 
dent, the Union army cross- 
ed the Potomac. Its pursuit 
of Lee, however, was slow. 
McClellan had long since 
lost the confidence of the President as well as of General Halleck, 
then at Washington, and it was resolved to supersede him. A 
messenger bearing the despatch arrived at McClellan's tent in 
Rectortown, during a heavy snow-storm, at midnight, November 
7th. The general read the letter, and, handing it over to his suc- 
cessor, said, indifferently, " Well, Burnside, you are to command." 
The army of the Potomac was now a hundred and fifty thousand 
strong. Burnside was reluctant to accept the responsibility, de- 
claring that he was unfit to handle so large a body of men ; and 
he, at last, yielded only to positive orders. 



528 SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR. [ N °is62? C * 

The plan which Burnside adopted was to move toward Rich- 
mond along the north bank of the Rappahannock, while making a 
feint in the direction of Gordonsville. Lee, perceiving his real 
intention, advanced in a parallel line. When the main body of the 
Federals reached Fredericksburg, where they were to cross, they 
saw in front of them the red flags and gray ranks of their old 
adversaries. After several days, the pontoons, which had been 
delayed through some inattention at Washington, came to hand. 
An attempt to lay them failed, because of a galling fusillade kept 
up by the Confederate sharp-shooters, hidden in the houses along 
the bank. A tremendous artillery fire was then opened upon the 
town, and under its cover a company of daring volunteers crossed 
in boats and expelled the riflemen at the point of the bayonet. 
The bridges were quickly completed, and on the morning of 
December 13th the Union army was massed in and about the vil- 
lage of Fredericksburg. So dense a fog lay in the valley that 
Longstreet approached near enough to the Federal lines to hear 
the commands of the officers. 

The Confederates, eighty thousand strong, occupied a series 
of heights carefully entrenched, with artillery sweeping the plain 
at the foot. Burnside's design was for General Franklin, who had 
crossed the Rappahannock two miles below with over fifty thou- 
sand men, to attack the Confederate right wing under Jackson ; 
while Sumner should carry Marye's Height on the Confederate 
left. Through some misunderstanding, Franklin sent only Meade's 
corps. The column had not gone far when it encountered an 
annoying obstacle. Stuart had placed a single gun under Major 
Pelham at the junction of the Richmond and River roads to worry 
the flank of the advancing force. Four Federal batteries opened 
fire upon him ; but the major, though a young man of only twenty- 
three years, held his ground and kept up a rapid and destructive 
cannonade until ordered away. General Lee, watching his gal- 
lant conduct, exclaimed, " It is glorious to see such courage in 
one so young." This obstruction being brushed aside, the column 
charged bravely up the hill, broke through the enemy's line, and 
penetrated to the reserves. From lack of support, however, this 
assault utterly failed. It was the only one that promised success, 
as it would have turned the stronghold in front of Fredericks- 
burg. 

The chief interest of the battle centres about the repeated 
charges upon Marye's Height. Just before noon, Sumner sent 



D , e 8 c 6 J 3 '] BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG. 529 

French's and Hancock's corps forward into the plain. When half- 
way across, the Confederate batteries converged their fire upon 
them from every side. An observer says that the gaps made in 
the ranks could be seen at the distance of a mile. " The long lines 
moved through the focus of death, quivering, but still advancing, 
their own guns on the north bank of the river giving them what 
help they might, a canopy of iron." When the Federals had 
nearly reached the base of the hill they were struck by a storm of 
ballets from two Confederate brigades securely posted behind a 
lo.ig, solid stone wall. The weakened ranks yielded to the tem- 
pest, and sought refuge in a protecting ravine. Thrice again they 
rallied and rushed forward with desperate valor, but in vain. It 
was a pitiless, useless slaughter, and the survivors fled leaving 
half their number strewing the bloody field. 

In this attack, Meagher's Irish Brigade especially distinguished 
itself. The London Times's correspondent says: " Never at Fon- 
tenoy, Albuera, nor Waterloo was more undoubted courage dis- 
played by the sons of Erin than during those frantic dashes against 
the almost impregnable position of their foe. That any mortal 
man could have carried the position, it seems idle to believe. 
But the bodies which lie in dense masses within forty-eight yards 
of the muzzles of Colonel Walton's guns are the best evidence of 
what manner of men they were who pressed on to death with the 
dauntlessness of a race which has gained glory on a thousand 
battle-fields, and never more richly deserved it than at the foot of 
Marye's Height, on the 13th day of December, 1862." 

There was no hope of success, yet Hooker, though he pleaded 
against it, was ordered to renew the fruitless struggle. Accord- 
ingly, toward night, General Humphreys's division was thrown 
forward. Shouting and hurrahing, the troops swept within sixty 
yards of the fatal stone wall. There the column staggered and 
broke. It was all over within fifteen minutes after the first gun 
was fired, but seventeen hundred and sixty out of four thousand 
men had fallen. Darkness mercifully put an end to this horrible 
massacre. 

General Burnside, brave to a fault, had determined to form his 
own corps, the Ninth, into columns of regiments, and make, the 
next morning, a new assault upon Marye's Height. Sumner, it 
is said, persuaded him to abandon this hazardous design. The 
following night, the troops, discouraged but not dismayed, crept 
back across the bridges to their old camping-ground. They had 
34 



530 SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [&§$; 

lost over twelve thousand men, and the Confederates not half 
that number. Both armies then went into winter-quarters. 

To add to the bloody record of this year of battles, the Sioux 
Indians, becoming dissatisfied with the payment of money claimed 
by them, in bloody imitation of their pale brothers, took the war- 
path. Little Crow and other chiefs perpetrated barbarous mas- 
sacres in Dacotah, Iowa, and Minnesota. Hundreds of the inhab- 
itants were butchered, and thousands, driven from their homes, 
saw all they possessed perish by the torch. The savages were 
finally routed. Thirty-nine of the captives were tried and con- 
demned to death. They were hung on a common scaffold at 
Mankato, Minnesota, December 26th. 

In the Southern States, domestic life now began to feel the 
stringency of the blockade. The money issued by the Confeder- 
ate government had steadily depreciated in value. Flour brought 
forty dollars per barrel, salt a dollar per pound, and a pair of boots 
fifty dollars. Woolen clothing was scarce, and the army depended 
largely on captures from the ample Federal stores. " Pins were 
so rare that they were picked up with avidity in the streets." A 
spool of thread came to be worth twenty dollars, a pound of 
sugar seventy-five dollars, and one of black pepper three hundred 
dollars. Paper was so scarce that matches could no longer be 
pat in boxes. Butter, eggs and white bread became luxuries 
even for the rich. 




THE MONITOR AT SEA. 



CHAPTER XV. 




THIOL® YEAfc OF THE CIVIL WJfc—1863. 

N New Year's day, the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation issued by Lin- 
coln the preceding- September 
went into effect. All the slaves 
within the seceded States were 
declared free. It is said that the 
original draft of this document 
was prepared in July, when the 
Union forces were in the midst 
of reverses. Carpenter repeats 
the President's words thus : " I 
put the draft of the proclama- 
tion aside, waiting for a victory. 
Well, the next news we had was of Pope's disaster at Bull Run. 
Things looked darker than ever. Finally came the week of the 
battle of Antietam. I determined to wait no longer. The news 
came, I think, on Wednesday that the advantage was on our side. 
I was then staying at the Soldier's Home. Here I finished writ- 
ing the second draft of the proclamation ; came up on Saturday ; 
called the cabinet together to hear it, and it was published the 
following Monday. I made a solemn vow before God that if 
General Lee was driven back from Maryland I would crown the 
result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves." 

No measure of the war was more bitterly opposed than the 
project of arming the slaves, which was now adopted by the Fed- 
eral government. It was denounced at the North ; while at 
the South, the Confederate Congress threatened with death any 
white officer captured while in command of negro troops, leaving 
the men to be dealt with according to the laws of the State in 
which they were taken. Yet, so willing were the negroes to en- 
list, and so faithful did they prove themselves in service, that by 



532 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



["March, 
L Iboo. 



December over fifty thousand had been enrolled, and before the 

close of the war that number was quadrupled. 

The Federal plan for the war 
this year remained unchanged, 
except that it included also the 
occupation of Tennessee. The 
Union army was about seven 
hundred thousand strong ; the 
Confederate, not more than half 
that number. 

At the West, the grand prize 
of the war was Vicksburg, the 
capture of which would reopen 
the Mississippi, the main artery 
of trade through that immense 
valley. Early in the spring, 
Grant resumed this task. The 
northern defences of the city had 
proved so strong that it was de- 
cided to make the next attempt 
from the south. The difficulty, 
however, was to get the army 
and the gunboats below the for- 





RUNNING THE BATTERIES AT VICKSBURG. 



tifications. Various efforts were made to " flank the Mississippi." 
One plan was to cut a canal across the great bend in the river 
opposite Vicksburg, and so turn the Mississippi from its bed as. 



Apr i863" ne '] BEFORE VICKSBURG. $33 

had been done at Island No. 10; another, was to dig a channel from 
the river to Lake Providence, whence there is water communica- 
tion to the Red River ; a third channel was proposed, by the 
way of various bayous from Milliken's Bend to New Carthage ; 
and a fourth through the Yazoo Pass and Moon Lake, and thence 
via the Cold Water, Tallahatchie, and Yazoo Rivers to the rear 
of the works at Haines's Bluff. 

These plans proving futile, it was finally decided to march the 
army down the west bank of the river, while the gun-boats and 
transports took the risk of running the batteries. Seventy miles 
of corduroy road were constructed through the morass, on which 
the troops were safely passed below. On the nights of the 16th 
and 22d of April, the fleet successfully ran the gauntlet of the 
eight miles of batteries commanding the channel. It then ferried 
the army across the river at Bruinsburg. 

Cutting loose from his base, Grant now hastened his column 
northward, defeating the advance of Pemberton's army at Port 
Gibson, May ist. Learning that General Joseph E.Johnston was 
coming to Pemberton's assistance, he rapidly pushed between 
them to Jackson, that, while holding back Johnston with his right 
hand, with his left he might drive Pemberton into Vicksburg, and 
afterward capture his whole army. Pursuing this design, he de- 
feated Johnston at Jackson, May 14th, and then, turning to the 
west, drove Pemberton from his position at Champion Hills, May 
1 6th, and finally at Big Black River, May 17th. In seventeen days 
from the landing, Grant had marched two hundred miles, fought 
four battles, taken ninety guns and six thousand prisoners. " That 
night," says an eye-witness, " Grant and Sherman had an inter- 
view, seated on a fallen tree, in the light of a pile of burning fence- 
rails, while the eager and swift-marching men of the Fifteenth 
corps filed by them and disappeared in the darkness." Their 
plans were soon laid, and on the morning of the 19th the invest- 
ment of Vicksburg was complete. 

Two desperate and bloody assaults having failed, a regular 
siege was begun. Mines and countermines were dug. The gar- 
rison could not show their heads above the entrenchments with- 
out being picked off by the watchful riflemen. A hat held for 
two minutes at a port-hole was pierced with fifteen balls. Shells 
searched out all parts of the city, the cannon of the army and 
fleet during the siege firing one hundred and fifty-three thousand 
three hundred and twenty-three shots. To escape the iron storm 



534 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



rJuly-Sept., 
L 18637 








MAP OF VICKSBURG AND VICINITY. 



which incessantly poured upon them, the inhabitants burrowed in 
caves until the city looked like a " prairie-dog's village." Meat 
gave out entirely, and the troops were reduced to half rations. 
Percussion -caps became scarce, and at one time there were 

only ten to a man. At last the gar- 
rison, exhausted by forty-seven days 
and nights of ceaseless labor in the 
trenches, could hold out no longer. 
Seeing that Grant was ready to make 
the final assault, Pemberton asked for 
terms of surrender. The two com- 
manders met under an oak tree be- 
tween the lines, at three P. M., July 3d. 
The next day the city capitulated with 
twenty-seven thousand men. The Union loss was less than nine 
thousand all told. 

Meanwhile, Port Hudson had been besieged by General Banks. 
Gardner, who was in command, made a valiant defence, but on 
learning of the fall of Vicksburg, he also surrendered. The 
entire length of the Mississippi was now clear, and one great 
object of the war was accomplished. July 16th, the steamer 
Imperial made the voyage from St. Louis to New Orleans. It 
was the first in two years. 

Late in June, Rosecrans took the field against his old antago- 
nist, Bragg. By his strategic movements he drove the Confed- 
erates back to Chattanooga. Here Bragg had a chance to be shut 
up within entrenchments, as Pemberton was at Vicksburg ; but, a 
more acute tactician, he knew the superior value of an army in 
the field, and so evacuated the place in good time. The Union 
forces pressed forward, and in the eager chase, became carelessly 
stretched out over a line forty miles long. Bragg, powerfully 
reinforced, suddenly turned upon his pursuers. The Federals 
rapidly concentrated, and the two armies met, September 19th, in 
the valley of the Chickamauga — the river of death. 

Bragg's plan was to turn the Union left, where General Thomas 
commanded. Against him he massed the bulk of his force under 
General Polk. The first day's contest was indecisive. Earty the 
next morning the struggle was renewed. Rosecrans was forced 
to move brigade after brigade to his left in order to resist the tre- 
mendous pressure at that point. About noon, General Wood 
having withdrawn too hastily, Longstrect pushed a brigade into 



8ept l863. 20 '] BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 535 

the gap before the rest could close up the line of battle, and swept 
the Federal right and centre from the field. Rosecrans himself 
was borne away, and, reaching Chattanooga, he telegraphed to 
Washington that his army was defeated. 

Thomas, however, the " Rock of Chickamauga," held his ground. 
All through the long afternoon the entire Confederate army surged 
against him, but to no effect. At one time he seemed lost. Long- 
street discovered a defile in the hills, and began to pour his men 
upon the Federal rear. Just then Granger came up with the 
Union reserves, and Thomas showed him the enemy that moment 
debouching into the plain. Quick as thought, Granger threw 
upon the foe a brigade of cavalry, and ordered a battery forward 
to check the tide till the other troops could be brought up to the 
point of danger. 

In this crisis heroes seemed to multiply. Colonel George, of 
the Second Minnesota, being asked, " How long can you hold this 
pass ? " replied, " Until the regiment is mustered out of service." 
A part of Steedman's division wavering before the terrible fire, 
that general seized the colors, and shouting, " Go back, boys, go 
back, but the flag can't go with you," wheeled his horse and rode 
straight toward the enemy. 

At sunset, the Confederates made their last charge. The Union 
troops had expended their ammunition, but repelled the attack 
with the bayonet. At night, Thomas deliberately withdrew to 
Chattanooga, picking up five hundred prisoners on the way. 

The Union army, defeated in the field, was now shut up in 
Chattanooga, where Rosecrans threw up entrenchments. Bragg 
occupied the hills commanding the place, and cut off its communi- 
cations. Ere long, the Federal supplies were exhausted. Ten 
thousand animals died, and the troops were threatened with star- 
vation. It was doubtful whether they could hold the place. 
Rosecrans had been displaced, and Thomas was in command. 
Grant, now in charge of the military division of the Mississippi, 
hastened to his rescue. Fearful lest Thomas might surrender 
before reinforcements could reach him, he telegraphed him to de- 
fend his post. The characteristic reply was, " I will stay till I 
starve." 

Every effort was then made to relieve the beleagured city. 
Hooker, with two corps of the Army of the Potomac, was carried 
by rail from the Rapidan to the Tennessee, about twelve hundred 
miles, in seven days. Grant arrived from New Orleans, October 



536 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TOct.-Nov., 
L 1863. 



23d. Affairs soon wore a different look. A bold dash on the morn- 
ing of the 27th cleared the road to Bridgeport, and restored com- 
munications with the river below. Sherman now came fighting 
his way from Mississippi. Eighty thousand men awaited Grant's 
orders to break through their environment. Yet by a strange 
misapprehension, Davis, when visiting Bragg's lines a fortnight 
before, thought that the Union army was in a trap, and had sent 
Longstreet with fifteen thousand men to attack Burnside at 
Knoxville. 

Monday morning, November 23d, was clear and bright. 
Thomas's troops, twenty-five thousand strong, were drawn up 
before Chattanooga. The men had on their best uniforms, and 
the bands discoursed the liveliest music. The surrounding hills 
and entrenchments were crowded with eager 
spectators. The Confederates stationed on 
the heights could see every movement ; and 
their pickets, resting on their muskets, 
watched the parade. Suddenly the drums 
beat the charge, the Union army broke into 
a double-quick, the review was turned into a 
battle, and that line of blue two miles long 
"swept true as a sword -blade" over the 
field. Soon there came dropping shots, then 
volleys of musketry and the deep roar of 
artillery. After a sharp resistance, Orchard Knob, a craggy knoll 
in front of the Confederate position, was seized and crowned with 
batteries. 

The Confederate line, twelve miles long, rested its left on Look- 
out Mountain, over two thousand feet high, and its right upon 
Missionary Ridge, so-called because, many years ago, it was the 
location of Indian mission-schools. A series of earthworks in the 
valley between, connected the two flanks. 

Grant's plan was for Sherman to attack the extreme right of 
this position, and Hooker the left ; then, when Bragg, in order 
to resist these blows, had sufficiently weakened the centre, to 
pounce upon that point and pierce it. 

On the night of the 23d, Sherman crossed the river, and early 
in the morning, under cover of a mist which hid his men, moved 
up to the foot of the Ridge and seized the northern extremity. 
Hooker charged the works on Lookout Mountain in flank, taking 
many prisoners. The troops had been ordered to stop on the 




CHATTANOOGA AND VICINITY. 



NoV |8 2 63. 25 '] BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA. 537 

lower plateau of the hill, but, carried away by the ardor of the 
attack, they swept round to the front, and, passing under the 
muzzles of the guns on the summit, drove the enemy before them. 
Through the mist that filled the valley, the anxious watchers 
below caught only glimpses of this far-famed " battle above the 
clouds." That evening, Hooker's camp-fires gleamed like jewels 
on Lookout Mountain's brow. The Union soldiers, amid cheers 
and songs, laid down to rest, feeling that on the morrow would 
be the decisive contest. 

During the night the enemy abandoned the crest of the moun- 
tain* At dawn, Captain Wilson and fifteen men of the Eighth 
Kentucky crept up among the rocky clefts and unfurled the Stars 
and Stripes. As the fog lifted, the Confederate camp in the valley 
was seen to be deserted also, and their line to have shrunk back to 
Missionary Ridge. 

While the guns were roaring along Lookout Mountain the day 
before, the soldiers said, laughingly, " Old Hooker is opening the 
hard-tack line." Sure enough, about noon, the screech of a 
steamer was heard down the river, and soon the vessel crawled 
up to the dock at Chattanooga. " It was a sorry craft," says a 
writer, " but it seemed the sweetest-voiced and prettiest piece of 
naval architecture that ever floated upon the Tennessee." 

At sunrise, Hooker pushed down across Chattanooga Creek, 
advancing in Bragg's rear, south of the Ridge. All this time, 
Sherman was steadily pounding on the Confederate right, so 
heavily that Bragg mistook it for the real attack, and accordingly 
depleted his centre to meet it. Grant from his post on Orchard 
Knob saw that the crisis of the battle had arrived, and promptly 
launched Thomas's corps on the enemy's centre. The signal for 
the assault had been arranged — six cannon-shots, fired at intervals 
of two seconds. The fateful moment arrived. " Strong and steady 
the commands rang out. 'Number one, fire! Number two, fire.' 
Number three, fire ! ' It seemed the tolling of the clock of des 
tiny, and when at ' Number six, fire ! ' the roar throbbed out with 
the flash, the dead line that had been lying behind the works all 
day, all night, all day again, came to resurrection in the twinkling 
of an eye, leaped like a blade from its scabbard, and swept toward 
the Ridge." 

The orders were to take the rifle-pits at the foot of Missionary 
Ridge, then to halt and re-form ; but the men forgot all that, car- 
ried the works at the base, and dashed on up the ascent. Grant 



538 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



rNov-25 
L I8i 



1863. 



caught the inspiration, and directed a grand charge along the 
whole front. 

" it was a splendid sight to see, 



For one who had no friend, no brother there." 

Up they went without firing a shot, and heedless of plunging 
ball and hissing bullet ; clambering over rocks ; leaping chasms ; 
crawling under fallen trees ; stumbling over the dead ; creeping 
along, hand over hand ; all lines broken, and the flags far ahs^d, 




A CHANGE AT MISSIONARY RIDGE. 



each one surrounded by a group of the bravest. Just as the s.:n 
sank below the horizon, the advance surged over the crest ; a 
hundred men followed, and an instant later captured the guns 
and turned them on the retreating foe. 

Bragg, after the rout of his army, resigned. The possession 
of Chattanooga gave to the Federal cause the control of East 
Tennessee, and, what was of far greater importance, a ready 
entrance into Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas. 

" The day after the battle was Thanksgiving," says B. F. 
Taylor, in his prose-poem, " Camp and Field " ; " and we had 
services in Chattanooga — sad, solemn, grand. The church-bells 
hung dumb in their towers, indeed, but for all that, there were 
chimes so grand that men uncovered their heads as they heard 
them. At twelve o'clock, the great guns at Fort Wood began 



N° 6 V 3;] SCENES IN CHATTANOOGA. 539 

to toll. Civilians said, ' Can they be at it again ? ' and sol- 
diers replied, ' The guns are not shotted, and the sound is too 
regular for work.' I hastened out to the fort, and the guns 
chimed on. What it was like flashed upon me in a moment : the 
valley was a grand cathedral, Fort Wood the pulpit of the mighty 
minster, and down the descending aisle in front rose Orchard 
Knob, the altar. The dead were lying there, far out to the east- 
ern wall, and God's chandelier hung high in the dome. They 
were the accents of praise I was hearing ; thirty-four syllables of 
thanksgiving the guns were saying : ' Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, 
for He is good ; for His mercy endureth forever ! ' And the hills 
took up the anthem and struck sublimely u. ; from the Ridge it 
came back, ' Give thanks unto the Lord,' and Waldron's Height 
uttered it, 'for His mercy endureth? and Lookout Valley sang 
aloud, ' forever, forever,' and all the mountains cried, 'Amen ! ' 

" And the churches of Chattanooga had congregations that 
day. Those who composed them had come silent and suffering 
and of steady heart : had come upon stretchers ; come in men's 
arms, like infants to the christening. Ambulances had been 
drawing up to the church-doors all night with their burdens, and 
within those walls it looks one great altar of sacrifice. The doors 
are noiselessly opening and closing, and I see pale faces — bloody 
garments. Right hands lie in the porch that have offended and 
been cut off; castaway feet are there, too, but there is nothing 
about sinning feet in the Sermon on the Mount ! It is not the 
house of wailing on whose threshold I am waiting ; it is the house 
of patience. Five still figures, covered by five brown blankets, 
are ranged on the floor beside me. Their feet are manacled with 
bits of slender twine, but a spider's thread could hold them. I lift 
a corner of the blankets, and look at the quiet faces. Do men look 
nearer alike when dead than when alive ? Else how could it have 
chanced that one of these sleepers in Federal blue should resem- 
ble another in Confederate gray nearly enough for both to have 
been ' twinned at a birth ? ' They are not wounded in the face, 
and so there is nothing to shock you ; they fell in their full 
strength. Tread lightly, lest they be not dead, but sleeping. 
The silence within oppresses me ; it seems as if an accent of pain 
from some sufferer in that solemn church would be a welcome 
sound, and I think of a brave bird wounded unto death that I 
have held in my hand, its keen eye undimmed and full upon me, 
throbbing with the pain and dying, and yet so silent ! " 



540 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [Jjg^j 

The same brilliant writer narrates a touching incident con- 
nected with the battle of Chattanooga. The Third Ohio regi- 
ment, which was captured with Streight's command in April of 
this year, while en route to Richmond stopped over night at a 
town where the Fifty-fourth Virginia was encamped. Naturally, 
the Confederates came strolling about " to see the sorry show of 
poor supperless Yankees. They did not stare long, but hastened 
away to camp, and came streaming back with coffee-kettles, corn- 
bread and bacon — the best they had, and all they had — and 
straightway little fires began to twinkle, bacon was suffering the 
martyrdom of the Saint of the Gridiron, and the aroma of coffee 
rose like the fragrant cloud of a thank-offering. Loyal guests and 
rebel hosts were mingled ; the hungry prisoners ate and were 
satisfied. Night and the Union boys departed together; the pris- 
oners in due time were exchanged, and were encamped within 
rifle-shot of Kelly's Ferry, on the bank of the Tennessee. 

"And now comes the sequel that makes a beautiful poem of the 
whole of it. On the day of the storming of Mission Ridge, among 
the prisoners was the Fifty-fourth Virginia, and on the Friday 
following, it trailed away across the pontoon bridge and along 
the mountain road, nine miles to Kelly's Ferry. Arrived there, 
it settled upon the bank like bees, awaiting the boat. Some of 
the Union boys were on duty at the landing when it arrived. 
' What regiment is this ? ' they asked, and when the reply was 
given, they started for camp like quarter-horses, and shouted, as 
they rushed in and out among the smoky cones of the ' Sibleys,' 
' The Fifty-fourth Virginia is at the Ferry ! ' The camp swarmed 
in three minutes. Treasures of coffee, bacon, sugar, beef, pre- 
served peaches, everything, were ' turned out in force,' and you 
may believe they went laden with plenty, at the double-quick, to 
the Ferry. The same old scene, and yet how strangely changed ! 
The twinkling fires, the grateful incense, the hungry captives ; but 
guests and hosts had changed places ; the star-lit folds floated 
aloft for 'the bonny blue flag;' and a debt of honor was paid to 
the uttermost farthing. If they had a triumph of arms at Chat- 
tanooga, hearts were trumps at Kelly's Ferry. And there it was, 
and then it was, that horrid war smiled a human smile, and a 
grateful, gentle light flickered for a moment on the point of the 
bayonet." 

While Rosecrans was marching to his fate, as we have seen, at 
Chickamauga, General Burnside, having been relieved of the com- 



^"(se^!' THE WAR IN VIRGINIA. 541 

maid of the army of the Potomac, was assigned to the Depart- 
ment of the Ohio. He advanced from his headquarters at Cin- 
cinnati into East Tennessee, and, with little loss, conquered it for 
the Union. In November, however, Longstreet arrived with his 
-;orps from Chattanooga. The Confederates were in a deplorable 
state, ragged, shoeless, hatless, blanketless, and hungry ; but they 
were veterans, and Burnside's forces were driven within the en- 
trenchments of Knoxville. Two fruitless assaults had been made 
upon the city, when Sherman came to the rescue from the victory 
at Chattanooga. As his advance arrived in sight, Longstreet's 
men filed out of their camp in full retreat. 

Between September 27th and December 4th, Sherman's corps, 
hastening to the relief of Chattanooga, had marched four hun- 
dred miles from the Big Black River in Mississippi, often without 
rations, sometimes barefoot, and three successive nights without 
sleep. They had fought during that week of battles, and thence 
they had traveled over terrible roads one hundred and twenty 
miles to the assistance of Burnside. " It was," says Draper, " the 
harbinger of the March to the Sea." 

General Hooker succeeded to the command of the Army of 
the Potomac, January 26th. He found the troops greatly demor- 
alized. Many had lost all heart in the cause. At one time, three 
thousand officers and eighty thousand privates were absent from 
the ranks, while the daily desertions numbered two hundred. 
The army was now carefully reorganized and disciplined until, as 
the commander declared, it was " the finest on the planet." The 
last of April, Longstreet with two divisions having been de- 
tached to the James, the Confederate force was reduced to sixty 
thousand, some say as low as forty-five thousand. As Hooker 
had one hundred and twenty thousand men at least, he saw the 
opportunity. His plan was for General Sedgwick to pass the 
river at Fredericksburg, as if to renew Burnside's enterprise, 
while he threw the main body across the Rappahannock above 
Chancellorsville, and then swept down on the Confederate rear. 
All worked admirably. The 30th found the "gray cavalier" still 
on the heights at Fredericksburg, while over seventy thousand 
men in blue were grouped under the Stars and Stripes about Chan- 
cellorsville. Hooker exultingly exclaimed, in a congratulatory 
order to his troops, that they now occupied " a position so strong 
that the enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from 
behind his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where 
certain destruction awaits him," 



542 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TNlay », 
L \bbZ. 



The next day the Union army moved out of the Wilderness 
into an advantageous position in the open country, where it could 
communicate wi'th Sedgwick by Banks's Ford. All anticipated 
a vigorous advance. Unexpectedly, however, Hooker changed 
from the offensive to the defensive, fell back into the Wilderness, 
and took post again at Chancellorsville. Here he made ready to 




LEE AND JACKSON PLANNING THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

receive battle in a wild and desolate region — a thicket of under- 
growth so dense that the " men had to flatten their bodies to glide 
between the stunted oaks ;" a jungle traversed only by narrow 
roads and bridle-paths, where neither cavalry nor artillery could 
operate, and every movement of an antagonist was effectually 
hidden. 

Lee, seeing the real intention of Hooker, now rapidly swung 
his army into position. On the eve of May ist, "seated upon 
some cracker-boxes under a pine tree " with his famous lieutenant, 
Jackson, he devised a method of attack. It was decided to take 
once more the risk of dividing the army in the face of the enemy; 
and that, while Lee made a show of fighting in front, Jackson 
with twenty thousand men should make a detour of fifteen miles 
through the woods and turn the Federal right. 

Early in the morning the movement was begun. . The line of 
march was about a mile in advance of the Federal position. General 



M |863: 3 '] BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. $43 

Daniel E. Sickles, saw the Confederates steadily streaming over a 
hill in his front, and, making a dash forward, captured the Twenty- 
third Georgia Regiment, which was guarding the flank of the 
column ; but as the road there turned southward, it was supposed 
the Confederates were retreating to Richmond. Screened by the 
wood and by Stuart's cavalry-scouts, Jackson kept on, completely 
circummarching the Federal right. Then, carefully forming his 
line of battle in silence, he suddenly burst out of the thicket like a 
whirlwind. The Union troops, scattered through their camps, 
were busy cooking their suppers. Before they could unstack 
their guns, the enemy sprang upon them. Howard's entire 
corps was panic-stricken. Arms, knapsacks and accoutrements 
were thrown away. Artillery-horses wildly plunged off at a 
gallop, and the wagons, striking against tree-trunks, were over- 
turned and blocked the way. Amid this crowd of rushing 
fugitives, General A. Pleasanton came up with five hundred 
cavalry. He ordered Colonel Keenan to charge with the Eighth 
Pennsylvania. The gallant officer knew that it was his death- 
warrant, but smilingly said, " I will," and dashed into the wood. 
In ten minutes he was prostrate, while the most of his men lay 
bleeding around him. These were precious minutes, however, 
and they had been improved. Pleasanton's battery of horse-artil- 
lery had been wheeled into position, and other guns had been 
brought up. When the enemy emerged into the opening, the 
cannon, double-shotted and trained low, opened fire upon them 
with terrible force. The Confederates, having become inextri- 
cably mingled in the forest, recoiled. Jackson ordered Hill's 
brigade to the front, and himself rode forward in the bright 
moonlight to reconnoitre. As he returned, his men mistook the 
party for Federal cavalry, and, firing upon it, he was mortally 
wounded. 

General A. P. Hill continued the Confederate attack, but he, 
also, was wounded, and General Stuart, the famous cavalry 
leader, took command of Jackson's corps. " The men had been 
accustomed," says Cooke, " to see their commander pass slowly 
along their lines on a horse as sedate-looking as himself, a slow- 
moving figure, with little of the ' poetry of war ' in his appear- 
ance. They now found themselves commanded by a youthful and 
daring cavalier on a spirited animal, with floating plume, silken 
sash, and a sabre which gleamed in the moonlight, as its owner 
galloped to and fro, cheering his men and marshalling them for 



544 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. l^iei', 

the coming assault. As he advanced with joyous vivacity, his 
sabre drawn, his plume floating proudly, one of the men com- 
pared him to Henry of Navarre at the battle of Ivry. But 
Stuart's wild gayety destroyed the romantic dignity of the scene. 
The next day, he led the men of Jackson against General Hook- 
er's breastworks, bristling with cannon, singing, ' Old Joe Hooker, 
will you come out of the wilderness? 

During the night, Hooker took a new position. His line was 
shaped like the letter U, with both flanks resting on the river. 
As the mist of Sunday morning lifted, Stuart seized Hazel Grove, 
a little hill in front, and planted thirty cannon upon it. It was 
the very key to the battle-field ; yet Hooker had just ordered 
Sickles to abandon it. The whole Confederate army now surged 
against Sickles's and Slocum's men. The former, finding his 
ammunition running low, sent back for reinforcements ; but none 
came. Hooker was standing on the veranda of the Chancel- 
lorsville House, when a cannon-ball struck the pillar against 
which he was leaning ; he was stunned by the blow, and for an 
hour, in the heat of the fight, the army was deprived of its com- 
mander. Sickles repulsed five charges with the bayonet while 
forty thousand Federal troops lay idle, with no enemy before 
them. Lee and Stuart had now fought their way to a union, and 
together bore down on the Chancellorsville House. At ten 
o'clock, the Union forces were driven back at every point. 

The Confederate army being drawn up on the plateau, Lee 
rode in front of the line. As he stopped near Chancellorsville 
House, the flames were leaping out of every window of the burn- 
ing building. The woods had caught fire, and the blaze was 
crackling through the thicket where the dead and wounded lay 
thickest. Clouds of smoke swept over the field, strewed with the 
horrid debris of battle. Cool and collected amid this fearful scene, 
he was just giving the order for a grand charge when he was 
stopped by the startling news that Sedgwick had taken Freder- 
icksburg. 

Drawing back, he turned against this new antagonist, and, by 
severe fighting that night and the next day at Salem Church, 
compelled him to recross the river. Wednesday, Lee returned to 
renew the conflict with Hooker. That general had lain idly in 
his entrenchments while this struggle with Sedgwick was going 
on, and had then retreated. During the night, the Army of the 
Potomac had spread pine-boughs on the bridges tu duii the noise 



May.n 
1863. J 



STONEWALL JACKSON. 



545 



of the trains, and quietly crept back to its old camping-ground 
opposite Fredericksburg. It numbered about seventeen thousand 
less than when it set out on this adventure ; while the Confederate 
force was weakened by about thirteen thousand men. 

The South had achieved a victory, but it was far more than 
counterbalanced by the loss of her favorite leader. Stonewall 
Jackson died a week 
after this great bat- 
tle, which had been 
mainly decided by 
the tremendous blow 
he delivered on the 
Federal right. Jack- 
son was a sincere 
Christian, and his 
character commands 
the respect due to 
exalted integrity 
wherever found. He 
was accustomed in 
all he did to ask the 
Divine blessing and 
guidance. His old 
body -servant said 
that he " could tell 
when a battle was at 
hand by seeing the 
general get up a 
great many times in 
the night to pray." 
His ejaculatory prayers during the heat of a conflict were often 
heard by those near him. At a council of war held in Manassas, 
after he had made his successful move to Pope's rear in the cam- 
paign of 1862, he listened quietly to the opinions of the other 
members, and then asked until the following morning to mature 
his own plan. A general officer present remarked to another, as 
they retired, " Jackson wants time to pray over it." About twelve 
o'clock that night, this officer, having occasion to go to the gen- 
eral's headquarters, found him on his knees, pleading earnestly for 
wisdom to direct him. The next day, he came before them with 
a plan which instantly commended itself to all. The distinguished 
35 




STONEWALL JACKSON IN HIS TENT. 



546 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [,J|| 



officer who relates this incident was so deeply affected by it as to 
be led to make a public profession of religion. 

Jackson was a diligent student of the Bible, frequently rising 
before day that he might find time to study a portion before going 
to his other duties. He delighted in religious conversation, and 
engaged in it at times least expected by those who did not know 
him. Once, while manceuvering to flank the enemy, he entered 
into a warm conversation with a young officer of his staff on the 
power of Christian example. Being interrupted by an orderly 
who reported " the enemy advancing," he paused only long 
enough to give the laconic order, " Open on them," and then 
resumed the conversation, which he continued for some time, 
breaking it only now and then to receive despatches and give the 
necessary replies. 

A chaplain relates that on the eve of Fredericksburg, he saw 
an officer wrapped in a plain overcoat, lying in the rear of a 
battery, quietly reading his Bible. He approached and entered 
into conversation on the prospects of the impending battle, but 
the officer soon changed the conversation to religious topics, and 
the chaplain was led to ask, " Of what regiment are you, chap- 
lain?" To his astonishment, he found that the quiet Bible 
reader was none other than the famous Stonewall. 

The circumstances of Jackson's death, as narrated by his sur- 
geon, Dr. McGuire, are exceedingly touching. Conversing with 
Captain Smith, he alluded to his wounds, and said, " Many would 
regard them as a great misfortune ; I consider them as one of the 
blessings of my life." Captain Smith replied, "All things work 
together for good to those that love God." " Yes," he answered ; 
" that's it, that's it." 

The general's joy at the coming of his wife and child was very 
great, and made him unusually demonstrative. Noticing the sad- 
ness of his wife, he said to her tenderly, " I know you would gladly 
give your life for me, but I am perfectly resigned. Do not be sad ; 
I hope I may yet recover. Pray for me, but always remember to 
use the petition, ' Thy will be done.' " About daylight on Sun- 
day morning, Mrs. Jackson informed him that his recovery 
was very doubtful, and that he should be prepared for the 
worst. He did not reply for a moment ; then he said, " It will 
be infinite gain to be translated to heaven." Colonel Pendleton 
coming into the room about one o'clock, he asked him, "Who is 
preaching at headquarters to-day?" Being told that "the whole 






•'""Ism'. 25 '] lee enters Maryland. $4; 

army was praying for him," he exclaimed, " Thank God ! They 
are very kind." Afterward he said, " It is the Lord's day ; my 
wish is fulfilled. I have always desired to die on Sunday." 

His mind now began to wander. A few moments before he 
died, he cried out in his delirium, " Order A. P. Hill to prepare 
for action!" "Pass the infantry to the front rapidly!" "Tell 

Major Hawks " then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. 

Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale 
face, and he said quietly, and with an expression as if of relief at 
closing up life's work at last, "Let us cross over the river and rest 
under the shade of the trees." 

Until midsummer of 1863, it seemed as if the Stars and Bars 
were ultimately to be victorious. The army of the Potomac had 
been defeated at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville ; Burnside 
had not yet overrun East Tennessee ; Banks was vainly knocking 
at the gates of Port Hudson, and Grant at Vicksburg ; Bragg 
had held Rosecrans at bay before Chattanooga for a good half 
year since the battle of Murfreesborough ; Magruder had recap- 
tured Galveston, Texas, taking valuable stores, securing a fort for 
the Confederates, and greatly depressing the Union cause in that 
State ; while an attempt of the iron-clads under Dupont to reach 
Charleston (see page 554) had ended in disaster. Worse than all 
these repulses at the hand of the enemy, a powerful peace party 
had arisen in the Free States, which either openly denounced the 
effort to " subjugate the sister States," or asked for quiet at the 
price of a dissolution of the Union. 

Encouraged by these successes, the South felt that the time 
had come to carry the war into the North, and dictate terms of 
peace in Philadelphia or New York. With the flower of that 
infantry which, on so many battle-fields, had wrenched victories 
from the best armies and generals the Federal government had 
yet sent forth, Lee, June 3d, just a month after Chancellorsville, 
broke camp, moved rapidly down the Shenandoan, and, crossing 
the Potomac, advanced to Chambersburg. 

The Confederates very generally obeyed Lee's stringent orders 
forbidding all plundering and wanton waste of property. A 
Southern paper, sarcastically alluding to this forbearance, declared 
that if the commander-in-chief saw a top rail off the fence, he 
would dismount and replace it. The army, however, lived upon 
the country through which it traveled — horses, cattle, and supplies 
bw'nj exacted from the farmers. York was ordered to have ready 



5 4 8 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



fJune— July, 
L 1863. 



in the market-place, at four o'clock in the afternoon of the requisi- 
tion, " one hundred and sixty-five barrels of flour, or twenty-eight 
thousand pounds baked bread ; thirty-five hundred pounds sugar ; 
sixteen hundred and fifty pounds coffee; three hundred gallons 
molasses; twelve hundred pounds salt; thirty-two thousand 
pounds fresh beef, or twenty-one thousand pounds bacon or pork ; 
two thousand pairs shoes or boots ; one thousand pairs socks ; 
one thousand felt hats; and one hundred thousand dollars in 
money." 

The Union army followed northward along the eastern slope 
of the Blue Ridge, the passes of which were occupied by Stuart's 

cavalry and gave no glimpse 
to prying Federal eyes of what 
was doing on the other side. 
June 27th, Hooker resigned, 
and General George G. Meade 
was appointed to the command 
of the army of the Potomac. 
Stuart, after crossing the river, 
moved off on the Union right, 
thus leaving Lee's communica- 
tions with Richmond open to 
the Union army through the 
gaps in the South Mountain. 
Lee thereupon turned to the 
east, in order to secure a good 
position for the defensive battle 
which he was resolved to offer. 
Meade, also intending to act 
only on the defensive, had de- 
cided to make a stand at a point on Pipe Creek, about fifteen 
miles southeast from Gettysburg. Neither commander was pur- 
posing a battle where it occurred ; but mere chance, the finger ol 
destiny, or the hand of providence, as men may varyingly style 
the current of events, steadily drifted the two armies into collision 
on that fatal Cemetery Ridge. 

Meade had sent his left wing, under General J. F. Reynolds, 
to Gettysburg, in order to screen the movements of the main 
body toward his objective point. In the morning of July 1st, Bu- 
ford's cavalry, moving out a couple of miles west of Gettysburg, 
struck the head of Lee's advance. Reynolds hurried to the front, 




MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE. 



July 1-3,1 
1863. J 



BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 



549 




and, while reconnoitering the enemy through a fence, was struck 
by a sharp-shooter. After having bravely fought in Mexico, 
California, and Virginia, he returned to die in his native State, 
"almost within sight of his home." Reinforcements rapidly came 
up on both sides ; but the Federal troops were finally forced 
back, and, becoming entangled in the streets of the village, 
lost many men, besides abandoning their wounded. Hancock 
arrived at the moment when they were retreating in disorder 
through the town, hotly pursued by the tri- 
umphant enemy. He at once made ready to 
hold the strong position on Cemetery Ridge 
already occupied by General Howard. Ail 
the men at hand were thrown into line, and 
Buford's cavalry was drawn up in front to 
offer battle. Awed by this firm appearance, 
and ignorant whether the whole Union army 
were not in his front, Lee decided to defer 
the attack till morning. Hancock informed 
Meade of the advantages of the location, and 

, -1-l.il 1 1 VICINITY OF GETTYSBURG. 

about midnight that general came up, when, 

amid the tombs of the dead, the plans were laid for the coming 

struggle. 

All that bright moonlight night the troops were arriving and 
taking their positions. By morning, both armies, each about 
eighty thousand strong, were in line of battle. On the Union 
side, Sedgwick's corps, having thirty-six miles to travel, marched 
all night, and, weary and footsore, did not arrive on the field 
until afternoon. On the Confederate, Pickett's division, coming 
from Chambersburg, joined Lee about the same time. 

The Union line was upon a fish-hook-shaped ridge about six 
miles long, with Culp's Hill at the barb, Cemetery Ridge along 
the side, and Little Round Top and Round Top — two eminences — 
at the eye. The troops lay behind rocky ledges and stone walls, 
constituting a natural rampart, which they soon strengthened by 
improvised breastworks. The Confederate line was on Seminary 
Ridge, at a distance of about a mile and a half, the men being 
largely hidden in the woods. In the valley between the hostile 
ranks were fields of golden grain and green meadows, where 
cattle were quietly grazing, all unheeding the gathering storm. 

On the Union left, General Sickles, by mistake, had taken a 
position in front of Meade's intended line of battle, Lee saw the 



550 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ J |863 3 .' 

error, and sent Longstreet to break this weak point and carry- 
Little Round Top. It was the key to the Union line, yet was 
strangely left unoccupied. The Confederates, far outflanking, 
swung around Sickles, but as they reached the summit they 
met Vincent's brigade, which General Warren had, by a quick 
thought, sent in the nick of time. Vincent fell, and also Weed, 
who came with a brigade to his relief; but the hill was held, and 
the Texans, whom Lee said he relied upon for every " tight 
place," at last retired — their commander, Hood, losing an arm. 
Sickles was, however, crowded back to Cemetery Ridge, where 
he stood firm. Later in the day, General Ewell made an attack 
on the Federal right, then greatly weakened by detachments sent 
to help Sickles, and succeeded in getting a position on Culp's 
Hill. 

At night, the Federal army had been forced back on both flanks. 
Lee, encouraged by this success, and by the wonderful spirit of his 
men, who were eager and confident, resolved to continue the fight 
another day. The Confederate advantage, however, was only ap- 
parent. Sickles was then in a better position than at first, and the 
one which Meade had intended him to occupy ; while Ewell could 
not hold his ground, and waj driven out of the Union works early 
the next morning. 

About one o'clock in the afternoon of the third day, Lee, hav- 
ing massed one hundred and forty-five guns, suddenly opened on 
Cemetery Ridge. For two hours the air was alive with shells. 
" Every size and form of shell known to British or American gun- 
nery," says Wilkinson, " shrieked, whirled, moaned, whistled, and 
wrathfully fluttered over our ground. As many as six in a sec- 
ond, constantly two in a second, came screaming around the 
headquarters. They burst in the yard ; burst next to the fence, 
garnished, as usual, with the hitched horses of aids and orderlies. 
The fastened animals reared and plunged with terror. One horse 
fell ; then another ; sixteen lay dead and mangled before the fire 
ceased. Through the midst of the storm of screaming and ex~ 
ploding shells, an ambulance, driven by its frenzied conductor at 
full speed, presented to all of us the marvelous spectacle of a horse 
going rapidly on three legs. A hinder one had been shot off at 
the hock. A shell tore up the little step at the headquarters cot- 
tage, and ripped bags of oats as with a knife. Another soon car- 
ried off one of its two pillars. Soon a spherical case burst opposite 
the open door; another tore through the low garret. The re- 



July 3,1 
1863. J 



BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 



551 



maining pillar went almost immediately to the howl ol a fixed 
shot that Whitworth must have made. Soldiers in Federal blue 
were torn to pieces in the road, and died with the peculiar yell 
that blends the extorted cry of pain with horror and despair." 
The Union guns replied for a time, and were then withdrawn to 
cool. The men lay crouching behind rocks and hiding in hollows 











REPULSING A CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG. 



from the iron tempest which drove over the hill, anxiously await- 
ing the charge which they knew would follow. 

Finally the cannonade lulled, and out of the woods swept the 
Confederate double battle-line, over a mile in length, preceded by 
a cloud of skirmishers, and with wings on either side to prevent 
its being flanked. A thrill of admiration ran along the Union 
ranks, as, silently and with disciplined steadiness, that magnificent 
column of eighteen thousand men moved up the slope with its red 
battle-flags flying and the sun playing on its burnished bayonets. 
A quarter of a mile away and a hundred guns opened upon it. 
Great gaps were torn in the front, but the men closed up and 
sternly moved on. Then the "quick time" became "double- 



5$2 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ J l8 



ly 4- 
863. 



quick," and they dashed forward on the run. Infantry volleys 
now struck their ranks. Their line was broken, and their sup- 
ports were scattered to the wind. Still Pickett's veteran Virgin- 
ians pushed forward. They planted their battle-flags on the breast- 
works. They bayoneted the cannoneers at their guns. But be- 
yond, upon the crest of the hill, was a second and stronger line. 
As they dashed ahead to charge this, the Federal fire smote them 
full in the face and on either flank. The whole column seemed to 
break into pieces and disappear at once. The bravest gave up in 
despair. Many surrendered, while the wreck fled from the field, 
leaving the ground strewn with the debris of battle — the wounded 
and the dead. The division had lost three generals, fourteen 
field-officers, and three-fourths of its men. 

This was the supreme moment of the war. At that very time 
Pemberton was seated beside Grant, under an oak-tree near 
Vicksburg, negotiating for the surrender of that city. These 
disasters determined the fall of the Confederacy. From that 
hour its fate was sealed. Yet at the time the issue did not seem 
so clear as it does now to the historian. 

Lee had staked all on this charge, and he made no attempt to 
renew the battle. In the three-days fight he had lost probably 
thirty-six thousand and Meade twenty-three thousand men. The 
Union commander was severely criticised at the North for not 
immediately attacking Seminary Ridge before the enemy could 
rally from its confusion. He probably judged wisely in being 
content with the victory he had achieved. Lee expected such a 
charge, and was ready to receive it. The morale of the Confeder- 
ate army was not shaken. Its confidence in its commander was 
strong, and the veterans came back from Seminary Ridge saying, 
" Uncle Robert will get us into Washington yet, you bet he will." 

On the 4th, Lee retreated, and nine days after crossed the 
Potomac, Meade slowly following. The second invasion of the 
North had ended in disaster. The first lasted thirteen days; this, 
seventeen days ; the two had cost the South at least eighty or 
ninety thousand men. Lee retired back of the Rapidan, sending 
Longstreet south to Bragg. Meade likewise detached Hooker to 
Chattanooga. 

A curious circumstance mentioned in the official accounts of 
the battle of Gettysburg shows to what extent, on both sides, the 
excitement of the conflict caused the loss of self-possession among 
the soldiers. Of twenty-four thousand loaded muskets picked up 



° C i863° V "'] FALL CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 553 

at random on the field of battle, one-fourth only were properly 
loaded ; twelve thousand contained each a double charge, and the 
other fourth from three to ten charges ; in some were six balls to 
a single charge of powder ; others contained six cartridges, one on 
the top of the other, none having been opened ; a few more had 
twenty-three complete charges regularly inserted (this can be ac- 
counted for by the fact that, amid the din of battle, one cannot 
hear the report of his gun) ; and finally, in the barrel of a single 
musket there were found jumbled together twenty-two balls, sixty- 
two buck-shot, and a proportionate quantity of powder. 

In October there occurred a trial of tactical skill which is 
interesting, though it did not result in any great battle. Lee 
recrossed the Rapidan, intending to turn Meade's right flank and 
force him to a battle. Meade detected the plan, and began to 
retreat. So well executed was the movement, that when the 
Confederate army entered Culpepper, scarce a cracker-box was 
found to reward the pursuit. Lee pressed on, hoping to strike 
the Orange and Alexandria railroad near Manassas, in the rear of 
the Union army. The Federal columns, however, moved with 
such celerity, that the rear-guard only was overtaken near Bristoe 
station. Here Warren turned sharply upon the enemy, dealt him 
a staggering blow, and then safely joined the army at Centerville. 
Lee, disappointed in his object, ceased the pursuit, and, content 
with two thousand prisoners, taken in several sharp encounters 
which had occurred, retired to his former position near Orange 
Court-House. Meade followed him up closely, at Kelly's Ford 
routing Early and capturing nearly his whole command. 

A curious incident happened during this advance. General 
Stuart was vigorously pursuing the Federal forces when, on the 
night of the 13th, near Auburn, he suddenly found that strong 
columns of the enemy were passing along in front and rear of the 
woods where he was encamped, the nearest one not over two 
hundred or three hundred yards distant. If discovered, his fate 
was sealed. The only resource was to keep silent and await the 
turn of events. His troopers accordingly sat their horses through 
the night, anxiously listening to the roll of artillery, the tramp of 
cavalry, and the steady march of infantry. At dawn, seeing the 
Federal rear encamped near by and quietly preparing their break- 
fast, he suddenly opened his guns, promiscuously knocking over 
their coffee-pots, while, under cover of a heavy fire, his men 
dashed off in safety. 



554 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Ap i863 July " 

November 26th, Meade in turn crossed the Rapidan, thinking 
to cut up in detail the Confederate army, then scattered in winter- 
quarters. Lee rapidly concentrated his troops behind Mine Run, 
and fortiried his lines. Trees were cut down, and the logs piled up 
in double walls, and filled in with earth. In front was a sluggish 
stream, with steep and slippery banks. The Federal troops felt 
that his position was unassailable, and it is said that the men 
detailed for the attack wrote their names on bits of paper, which 
they pinned to their breasts, to enable their bodies to be recog- 
nized. The assault was finally abandoned, the Union army 
secretly withdrawn to its former quarters, and the campaign of 
the army of the Potomac for the year 1863 was closed. 

During this year, the events of the greatest moment along the 
seaboard occurred at Charleston. Such was the confidence then 
felt in the ability of iron-clads to resist the heaviest cannonade, 
that Admiral Dupont attempted, April 7th, to run past the 
batteries and enter the harbor of that city. The little fleet, 
mounting only thirty-two guns, accordingly moved up the chan- 
nel ; but the vessels were stopped by obstructions, and held under 
the concentrated fire of three hundred cannon. The Keokuk, 
which was in advance, was struck ninety-nine times, the officers 
declaring that they heard the balls pounding against the iron sides 
of their ships as rapidly as the ticks of a watch. All the monitors 
were more or less injured, and were glad to creep out of harm's 
way again. 

In July, General Gillmore, being placed in charge of the Union 
troops, secured a landing on Morris's Island, a low sandy beach 
but little above the level of the sea. An attack on Fort Wagner, 
a strong fortification at the northern end of the island, having 
failed, after a heavy bombardment it was again assaulted on the 
night of July 18th. The men double-quicked across the sand 
half a mile, under a heavy fire of guns, great and small. Though 
their ranks were torn by hand-grenades, they struggled through 
the ditch and planted their flag on the top of the crumbling 
wall. It was only for an instant. General Strong was mortally 
wounded ; Colonel Shaw and others were killed. The survivors 
crept off in the friendly darkness. In this disastrous failure, the 
Union loss was twelve hundred, and the Confederate not over 
one hundred. 

Colonel Shaw was in command of the Fifty-fourth colored 
regiment It was the first raised m the Free States,. In order to 



AUg i863 Pt "] BEFORE CHARLESTON. 555 

be in season for the assault, it had marched two days through 
heavy sands and drenching storms. With only five minutes rest, 
it took its place at the front of the attacking column. The men 
fought with unflinching gallantry, and so many of the officers 
were killed that the remainder of the troops was led off by a boy, 
Lieutenant Higginson. The garrison, to show their contempt for 
the colonel, a noted abolitionist, " threw his body into the same 
pit with his niggers." 

A regular siege was now undertaken. Parallels were rapidly 
pushed close to the walls. By night, powerful calcium lights 
blinded the eyes of the garrison, while they brought out every 
angle of the works vividly to the aim of the besiegers. At last, 
the fort being siienced and its men driven into their bomb-proof 
for shelter, Gillmore was preparing for a third assault when the 
place was evacuated. 

Meanwhile, Sumter had been bombarded until it was reduced 
to a shapeless mass of ruins. On the night of September 8th, a 
party of sailors, landing from the fleet, clambered up the heaps of 
rubbish, only to meet the garrison starting out from their hiding- 
places, and to oe all either killed or captured. 

In a marsh west of Morris's Island, piles were driven into the 
soft, black mud, twenty feet deep, and a platform was made, on 
which was placed an eight-inch rifled Parrot gun, nicknamed by 
the soldiers " the Swamp Angel." It threw 1 50-lb. shells five miles 
into Charleston, but burst on the thirty-sixth round. The bom- 
bardment of the city was afterward continued from the other 
batteries. 

After the disaster at Gettysburg, the Confederate Congress 
decreed a more rigorous conscription act, ordering all male per- 
sons from eighteen to forty-five to repair to camp on pain of being 
considered deserters. Before the close of the year, the age was 
extended to fifty-five, and no exemption allowed, even where a 
substitute had been previously furnished. The next year, the 
whole male population was rendered liable to military service. 

The Federal government passed a conscription law, March 3d, 
enrolling all able-bodied citizens between twenty and forty-five 
years, and in May, the President ordered a draft of three hundred 
thousand men. The project was exceedingly unpopular, and was 
bitterly denounced on every hand. The anti-slavery measures of 
the administration had already awakened a wide-spread hostility 
to the war. While Pickett's column was assaulting Cemetery 



556 



THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



rJuly-Nov , 
L 1863. 



Ridge, inflammatory handbills were being circulated in New- 
York. July 13th, a riot broke out in that city. The mob rose in 
arms, sacked houses, demolished the offices of the provost-mar- 
shals, burned the colored orphan asylum, attacked the police, 
and chased negroes — women and children even — wherever they 
appeared on the streets, and, when caught, hanged them on the 




nearest lamp-post. For four days, the populace ruled. Veterans 
from the army of the Potomac then arrived upon the scene, when 
law and order were soon restored. Two million dollars of prop- 
erty had been destroyed, and it is said that one thousand of the 
rioters had fallen. 

A part of the Gettysburg battle-field was dedicated as a 
national cemetery, November 19th. After the usual solemnities, 
President Lincoln came forward, and, amid the tiers of encircling 
graves, slowly, tremulously pronounced these memorable words: 
" We cannot consecrate nor hallow this ground. The brave men, 



f^;] CAVALRY RAIDS. 557 

living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
above our power to add or detract. The world will but little 
note, nor long remember, what we say here ; but it can never 
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to dedi 
cate ourselves to the unfinished work which they so nobly 
advanced ; to consecrate ourselves to the great task remaining, 
and to gather from the graves of these honored dead increased 
devotion to that cause for which they gave their lives. Here let 
us resolve that they shall not have died in vain ; that this nation 
shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom ; and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not 
perish forever from the earth." 

" His voice all elegies anticipated, 
For whatsoe'er the strain, 
We hear that one refrain : 
We consecrate ourselves to them, the consecrated ! " 

During this year there were several minor expeditions which 
at the time attracted much attention, though they exercised little 
influence on the issue of the war, and served mainly to excite the 
bitterest feeling on both sides. April 17th, while Grant was pre- 
paring to move below Vicksburg, Colonel Grierson, with seven- 
teen hundred Union horsemen, started south from La Grange, Ten- 
nessee. He traversed the country in the rear of the Confederate 
forces, in sixteen days marching six hundred miles, and destroy- 
ing railroads and supplies wherever he could reach them. De- 
tachments sent out to mislead his pursuers often traveled sixty 
miles a day over almost bottomless roads to regain the main body. 
Near Louisville he crossed a swamp where, for eight miles, the 
water was from three to four feet deep, and in which twenty of 
his horses were drowned. The last twenty-eight hours he rode 
seventy-six miles, swimming a river, fighting two skirmishes, and 
capturing a camp. He reached Baton Rouge at last with three- 
fourths of his men asleep in their saddles. 

About the same time, Rosecrans sent Colonel Streight and 
eighteen hundred cavalry to raid in the rear of Bragg's army and 
destroy the manufactories at Rome and Atlanta. He was over- 
taken, however, by Forrest and Roddy, beaten in a running fight 
of over one hundred miles, and finally forced to surrender. The 
men were exchanged, but Streight and his officers were confined 
in Libby Prison, Richmond, on the charge of having negro sol- 



5 58 THIRD YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [""Gas!*" 

diers under their command. After a confinement of nearly a year, 
Streight escaped with many of his companions, and after a series 
of romantic adventures, reached the Union lines. 

Just before the battle of Chancellorsville, Hooker sent General 
Stoneman with twelve thousand cavalry to destroy the railroads 
in the rear of the Confederate army, and to cut off Lee's retreat to 
Richmond. Stoneman weakened his force by dividing it into six 
detachments. Unable to accomplish anything, they could only 
run from the enemy instead of after him. Some of them finally 
fled down the Peninsula, and the rest escaped across the Rappa- 
hannock to the Union lines. Meanwhile, the little gaps they had 
made in the railroads were repaired within three days. 

Cotemporaneous with Lee's invasion of Maryland, that daring 
rider, John H. Morgan, crossed the Cumberland with two thou- 
sand well-mounted horsemen. At Tebb's Bend on Green River 
.he found two hundred Michigan volunteers entrenched behind 
earthworks which had been thrown up within twenty four hours. 
Colonel Moore, the commander, being summoned to surrender, 
replied : " If to-day were not the 4th of July, we might think of 
it." Driven thence by this plucky little garrison, Morgan next 
attacked a post at Lebanon, under Colonel Hanson, and compelled 
it to capitulate. His force having increased to four thousand men, 
he crossed the Ohio, July 7th, and marched in an easterly zigzag 
course through Indiana and Ohio. En route he destroyed bridges 
and depots, cut telegraph wires, burned factories and mills, and 
picked up the best horses. He reached the Ohio River again 
near Parkersburg. The Federal gun-boats, however, came up ; 
the militia fast gathered on his path ; and after several ineffectual 
attempts to recross the river, he was captured with most of his 
command. 

On the night of August 21st, a guerilla band from Missouri, of 
about three hundred men, under Quantrell, attacked Lawrence, 
Kansas. They burned houses, plundered stores, shot peaceful 
men at their doors, and finally rode off, leaving behind them one 
hundred and forty dead bodies and one hundred and eighty-five 
ruined homes. 

A great desire being felt at the North to effect the release of 
the Union prisoners at Richmond, during the winter of 1863-4 an 
expedition was sent from the Army of the Potomac for that pur- 
pose. Fifteen hundred cavalry under Custer made a feint on the 
west flank of the Confederate forces ; while Kilpatrick with a 



March,"] 
1864. J 



CAVALRY RAID ON RICHMOND. 



559 



stronger body moved by the East, through Spottsylvania Court- 
House. The latter passed the first and second lines of defence 
before Richmond, but was stopped by the third, and being fiercely 
pursued, was driven pell-mell down the Peninsula. Meanwhile, a 
detachment under Colonel Dahlgren — a young man of only twenty- 
one, who had already lost a foot in the service — turned to the right, 
intending to cross the James and enter Richmond from the south. 
But finding the river too deep to ford, Dahlgren passed down the 
north bank and charged the Richmond defences on the night of 
March 2d. Being repulsed, and finding Kilpatrick had fled, he 
attempted to follow, but at Dabney's Ford, on the Mattapony, he 
was killed and his command scattered. 




NATIONAL MONUMENT AT GETTYSBUB- 



CHAPTER XVI. 



FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR—1S64. 




RANT was made Lieutenant-Gen 
eral and commander of all the 
forces of the United States, March 
2d. Leaving Sherman in charge 
of the Western troops, he took up 
his headquarters with the Army 
of the Potomac; Meade, however, 
still retaining his former position. 
General Phil. H. Sheridan was put 
at the head of the cavalry. The 
strength of the Confederates was 
concentrated under Lee in Vir- 
ginia and Johnston in Georgia. 
While the army of the Potomac was crossing the Rapidan, 
May 4th, Grant, seated on a log by the road-side, penciled a tele- 
gram to Sherman to take the field immediately. Sherman had 
then in his department the enormous number of three hundred 
and fifty-two thousand two hundred and sixty-five men. One can 
form some idea of the waste of our mode of warfare when he learns 
that the total effective force was only one hundred and fourteen 
thousand eight hundred and twelve, and on no occasion was 
half of this number actually engaged in battle. The Confederate 
army aggregated nearly one hundred and fifty thousand, with 
only a little over fifty thousand present for duty. 

May 6th, Sherman advanced from Chattanooga. Johnston, ex- 
pecting this movement, had entrenched his army at Dalton. In 
his front was Rocky-Face Ridge, pierced by a rugged glen known 
as Buzzard Roost, through which wound the railroad. A demon- 
stration having shown this pass to be impregnable, Sherman sent 
General McPherson with his corps through Snake Creek Gap 
toward Resaca, thus turning the Confederate left- Johnston 



M N364"' y '] SHERMAN'S MARCH TO ATLANTA. 561 

fell back hastily to Resaca, already strongly fortified. Here 
Sherman pressed heavily in front, while McPherson, on the Union 
right, gained a post which enfiladed the enemy's works. The next 
day the national troops obtained a foothold close to the Confederate 
entrenchments, dug away the earth, pulled out the cannon with 
ropes, and, bursting through the breach, secured a lodgment 
within the lines. During the night, Johnston retreated. The 
pursuit was so vigorous as to save one of the bridges over the 
river. The broad valley of the Etowah and the Oostenaula, with 
the foundries and the mills at Rome, fell into the Union hands. 

At Allatoona Pass, Johnston made a new stand. Sherman did 
not attempt to force him thence, but moved around upon the Con- 
federate left toward Dallas. Johnston had anticipated this, and, at 
New Hope Church, was found waiting to head off the advance. 
Desperate assaults were made to and fro. Finally the Union army 
worked past into the rear of Allatoona, when Johnston evacuated 
all his posts and retired to Lost, Pine and Kenesaw Mountains. 
Here the whole country was one vast fort with fifty miles of en- 
trenchments, above which towered " the everlasting hill " of Kene- 
saw, whence the Confederates could watch every movement in 
the national lines. 

Sherman, wishing, it is said, to "show that he could assault 
fortified lines as well as the Army of the Potomac," June 27th, 
made two fierce dashes upon the enemy's works. Both were 
repulsed, with a loss of three thousand men and many valuable 
officers. Resorting then to his favorite tactics, he swung his army 
around toward Turner's Ferry. The result was magical. Before 
daylight the next day the Union outposts were creeping over the 
deserted entrenchments on Kenesaw. 

Johnston next endeavored to defend the strong tete dn pont and 
outworks at the crossing of the Chattahoochee. Amusing the 
Confederate army by demonstrations in front, Sherman secretly 
sent off Scofield, Howard, and McPherson to the left. They 
quickly laid bridges, and were soon across the stream above the 
Confederate lines. Johnston's position was once more turned, and 
he was ere long en route for Atlanta. 

Johnston was not in the confidence of the Confederate authori- 
ties. Failing to appreciate the magnificent strategy by which he 
had so long delayed the Federal advance, they superseded him, 
July 17th, by General Hood. The Fabian tactics were at once 
exchanged for a more dashing policy. 
36 



562 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Ju ')f864. pt " 

Sherman was moving down upon Atlanta, when, on the 20th, 
Hood gave him a staggering blow, which was warded off. Again, 
on the 22d, Hood, having sent Hardee with a heavy column try a 
night-march to turn the Union left, suddenly enveloped it with a 
superior force. A desperate battle ensued. The Federals facing 
now this way and now that, as the enemy came upon them from 
tne forest, fought sometimes on one side and sometimes on the 
other of their breastworks, and sometimes without any protection. 
McPherson was at headquarters when the sound of the guns in- 
dicated danger. He at once galloped in that direction, down a 
quiet country lane in the rear of his line. Some dropping shots 
were heard, and then a riderless horse came dashing back from 
the woods. When help arrived, this gallant, Christian warrior 
was no more. Hours of fierce fighting followed, but the Con- 
federates were at length repulsed with heavy loss. 

Six days after, Hood made a third tremendous sally upon the 
Union position. It was useless. During the next four weeks, 
Sherman kept feeling the formidable works about Atlanta ; but 
finding them too strong for a direct assault, he loaded his wagons 
with fifteen-days provisions, and, by a circuit, brought his whole 
army around in the rear of the city and seized the railroad. Hood, 
detecting the movement, sent Hardee with two corps to Jones- 
borough to guard his line of supplies. Sherman instantly closed 
down upon him. The Confederate army was irrevocably sun- 
dered, and the Union forces were between the two portions. 
Hardee, however, managed to escape. Hood evacuated the city, 
after blowing up the magazines, depots, and machine-shops. Thus 
the Confederate army, which was the chief object of attack, 
slipped away. 

The campaign had lasted from May 6th to September 2d. In 
its ten pitched battles and scores of minor engagements, it had 
cost the Union army about thirty thousand and the Confederate 
forty thousand men. It had been almost a constant skirmish. 
Said Sherman, " I have not seen ten thousand of the enemy in one 
view, yet, by advancing my lines one hundred yards, I could at 
any time draw the fire of one hundred guns and fifty thousand 
muskets." 

When either party stopped, even for a brief time, it fortified 
its front with an abattis of felled trees and a ditch with a head-log 
placed on the embankment. The head-log was a tree, twelve or 
fifteen inches in diameter, resting on small cross-sticks, leaving a 







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WESTERN REGION. 

Scale of i_ 



564 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Sep i864. OV "' 

space of four or five inches between the log and the dirt, through 
which the guns could be pointed. Thus, in a few hours, a field- 
work was thrown up which was almost unassailable. 

Sherman's supplies during the entire campaign had been 
brought by a single line of railroad Irom Nashville, a distance of 
three hundred miles, exposed throughout to the attacks of the 
enemy. Yet so carefully was it garrisoned, and so rapidly were 
bridges built and breaks repaired, that the damages made by the 
Confederate cavalry were often mended before the news of the 
accident had reached the front. The whistle of the locomotive 
was frequently heard on the camp-ground before the echoes of 
the skirmish fire had died away. 

The loss of Atlanta was a severe blow to the South ; as it was a 
great railroad centre, and the chief seat of her machine-shops and 
manufactories. The Confederacy was cut off from Georgia — its 
granary, arsenal, and workshop. 

Hood, having reunited his army, moved northward as far as 
Dalton, capturing several small posts along the line of the Federal 
communications. Sherman pursued him eagerly, hoping to bring 
him to battle, but Hood slipped out of his fingers, and at last 
struck for the Tennessee. Sherman gave up the pursuit at Gayles- 
ville, Alabama, and, sending Thomas to Nashville to gather troops 
to meet Hood's invasion, turned back to Atlanta and prepared his 
army for his famous March to the Sea. 

Reinforcements were ordered to General Thomas ; the sick 
and wounded were sent back to Chattanooga ; supplies for forty 
days were packed in the wagons ; the railroads were destroyed ; 
and a large part of Atlanta was burned, all the buildings on 
two hundred acres of ground being left a heap of ruins. The 
last thing, a telegram was sent to Thomas — " All is well " — 
when the wire was cut. The army, sixty thousand strong, stood 
free on southern soil. November 16th, it struck out boldly for 
the sea, three hundred miles away. The left wing, under Gen- 
eral Slocurn, moved along the Geo -gia and South Carolina rail- 
road, and the right, under General Howard, along the Western 
and Macon and the Central Georgia railroad. The tracks were 
torn up and the rails destroyed as they passed. A cloud of cav- 
alry under Kilpatrick and lines of skirmishers covered the march 
and guarded against a surprise. The troops foraged upon the 
r.ountry along the route. A swath sixty miles wide was thus cut 
tnrougn the very heart of the Confederacy. The path of the 



Nov.— Dec. 
1864. 



THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 



565 







army was marked by trampled 
fields, deserted villages, and 
chimneys standing sentinel 
over blackened ruins. The 
able-bodied men had been sent 
North to Lee and Johnston, 
and the "gray -beards and 
boys" that were left could offer 
no effective resistance. A feint 
on Augusta led to a concentra- 
tion at that city of what forces 
could be gathered, leaving the 
route to Savannah open ; and 
Sherman rapidly moved down 
the peninsula between the Sa- 
vannah and Ogeechee Rivers. 

December 9th, three scouts 
left the army. Paddling down 
the river by night, and hiding 
in the swamps by day, they 
crept past the enemy's pickets 
unobserved, and reached the 
Federal fleet in safety. They 

brought the first direct news received at Washington from the 
lost army since it swung loose from Atlanta. 

Fort McAllister, a strong redoubt on the Ogeechee, was car- 
ried by Hazen's division. The garrison of two hundred fought 
desperately, and gave up only as each man was overpowered ; but 




THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 



566 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [fe 

in fifteen minutes from the time the bugle sounded the charge, the 
Stars and Bars were run down from the flag-staff. 

The army then rapidly closed in around Savannah. Hardee, 
in command of its defences, despairing of a successful resistance, 
evacuated the city, and the Union army entered in triumph. 
Sherman sent to " President Lincoln, as a Christmas present to 
the nation," the news of its capture with twenty-five thousand 
bales of cotton and one hundred and fifty cannon. 

The March to the Sea had proved a magnificent military 
promenade. Sherman's entire loss was only five hundred and 
sixty-seven men in killed, wounded and missing. If the destruc- 
tion of property be the object of war, it had been a great success. 
Sherman estimated the damage done at one hundred million 
dollars. 

We left Hood making another sortie within the Union lines. 
It was a desperate venture, and he marched only to his doom. 
About the middle of November, he crossed the Tennessee at 
Florence. Generals Schofield and Stanley were in his front with 
twenty thousand men, about half as many as were in his com- 
mand, seeking to delay his advance upon Nashville. Hood 
pressed them steadily back, at Spring Hill coming within half a 
mile of cutting off their line of retreat, and at last caught them at 
Franklin before they could cross the river. Schofield hastily threw 
up slight works on the south bank and made a stand with a part 
of the troops, while the rest guarded the trains, which were rap- 
idly pushed forward. About four p. M., November 30th, Hood 
made a tremendous dash upon the entrenchments. By sheer 
might, the Confederate column swept everything before it, and 
soon the Federals, guns and men, were streaming wildly to the 
bridges in the rear. At this moment of peril, General Opdycke, 
waiting for no order, shouted, " First Brigade, forward to the 
works," and himself led the charge. They struck the enemy 
when disordered by their very success, forced them back, cap- 
tured ten flags, and restored the line. Opdycke, with clubbed 
revolver and then with musket, drove the stragglers and skulkers 
to thjir duty. Others as brave came to his aid. Till ten o'clock 
at night, they held the front against repeated assaults. Under 
cover of the darkness, this gallant rear-guard fell back silently 
and before noon the following day the entire Federal force was 
safe within the entrenchments at Nashville. In this hard-fought 
battle, the Union loss was less than twenty-five hundred, and the 



Dec. 15 



] BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 567 



Confederate, by Hood's report, was forty-five hundred, including 
five generals killed, six wounded and one captured. 

The next day Hood approached Nashville. He had there to 
confront an army superior to his own, and protected by numerous 
forts. An attack was hopeless. Thomas's delay to drive off his 
adversary under these circumstances excited great disappoint- 
ment at the North. Indeed, Grant had ordered him to move, 
and had actually started to take command of the troops in person 
when he learned of his lieutenant's success. 

On the 15th, Thomas took the field. Feigning an attack on 
the Confederate right, he delivered the real blow on the left, driv- 
ing Hood from his works, and forcing him to take up a new line 
of battle at the base of Harpeth Hills. The Union troops lay on 
the hard-Avon ground during the bleak December night, and the 
next morning renewed the conflict. The Confederate position 
was forced at a dozen points by overwhelming charges. Over- 
ton's Hill was carried after a desperate resistance, and the whole 
army driven into headlong flight. Wilson's cavalry, ten thousand 
strong, had all the while been working around into Hood's rear. 
They now took up the pursuit with untiring energy, and the in- 
fantry followed hard after. The weather was cold and rainy ; the 
roads were trampled into almost bottomless mud ; the creeks were 
swollen to torrents ; the bridges were burned by the Confederates 
as they passed, and Thomas's pontoon-train was away with Sher- 
man. Forrest, the famous Confederate cavalry leader, came up to 
Hood's relief and organized a powerful rear-guard. Yet no 
obstacle could check the chase. The Confederate troops — bare- 
footed, wet to the skin, blinded by the sleet, and half-frozen by 
the cold — fled day and night. Save the rear, which remained 
firm to the last, the whole organization dissolved into a mere 
rabble. 

The rock of Chickamauga had become the sledge of Nashville. 
For the first time in the history of the war, an army was destroyed. 
The contest at the west, so far as great movements were concerned, 
was at an end. Thomas had now no enemy to meet, and his troops 
were scattered on various expeditions. 

Having seen one great weapon of the Confederacy annihilated 
in Tennessee, we now turn to consider the fate of the other — 
the army under Lee. We left Grant crossing the Rapidan, May 
4th, with one hundred and thirty thousand men. He had turned 
Lee's right flank, and his plan was by a rapid march to get be- 



568 



FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



f Way 5, 
L 1864. 



tween him and Richmond, and then force him to a battle. Lee. 
however, though he had only about fifty thousand men, did not 
retreat. Instead, he resolved to fall upon the Union army while 
entangled in the Wilderness, so famous in the Chancellorsville 
struggle a year before. The morning of the 5th found Warren 
with his corps moving out from the old Wilderness Hotel, while 
Hancock was pushing along the Brock road, the same over which 
Jackson made his secret flank march. Suddenly the Union column 
was struck in flank by Ewell's corps passing down the Orange 
Turnpike at right-angles to the Federal line of march. At first, 




CROSSING THE KAPIDAN — GRANT S TELEGRAM. 



Meade took it to be a matter of the skirmishers only ; but the 
heavy firing and the dense masses of men hastening along the roads 
told a different story. Hancock, then ten miles away, was hur- 
riedly recalled, and Getty's division was placed to hold the Brock 
road open at every cost till his arrival. By great exertions the 
ground was maintained, and the Union line was formed. It was 
five miles long, with Warren in the centre, Sedgwick on the right, 
and Hancock on the left. 

Another battle was now to be fought in this " land of jungle, 
thicket, and ooze." There is little need to picture its details. 
There was no strategy. The two mighty antagonists clutched at 
each other blindly, and wrestled in the dark. " Death came un- 
seen ; regiments stumbled on the enemy, and sent swift destruc- 



May 5-6,-1 
1864. J 



BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. 



569 



• \puu*g.' , £SS 






tion into his ranks, guided by the crackling of the bushes." The 
officers, compass in hand, led the charge as best they could. Both 
sides cut down saplings, threw up slight breastworks of poles 
and dirt, and made abattis. Though they heard the ringing of 
the axes, they saw no one on the opposite side. The line surged 
to and fro, and no eye could follow it ; only the ear marking the 
sound as it advanced or receded. Men fell, and their dying 
groans were drowned in the dull continuous roar, while their 
bodies were hidden in the tangled underbrush. 

The first day of this horrid butchery decided nothing. Grant's 
only order for the next morning was to attack along the whole 
line. The sun blazed like a furnace. 
The gloomy shades were s lifting with 
smoke. Not a breath of air was 
stirring. The thicket caught fire, 
as at Chancellorsville, and the men 
fought amid the crackling flames. 
General Wadsworth, on the Union 
side, was killed ; and on the Confeder- 
ate, Longstreet was severely wound- 
ed. Till late at night there streamed 
out of the woods the horrid wreck 
of battle — mangled, bleeding forms 
borne on stretchers. " The Wilder- 
ness," says Draper, " was throbbing 
with the wounded." 

Grant had now lost twenty thou- 
sand and Lee ten thousand men. 
The next day each general quietly 
watched his adversary. At night, 
Grant pushed his army by the Con- 
federate right flank to Spottsylvania 
Court-House, Warren leading the ad- 
vance. Lee, mistrusting the movement, at nine o'clock in the 
evening hurried off Anderson along a parallel road toward the 
same point. Stuart with his cavalry so delayed the Federal march 
chat when Warren arrived the next morning, he found the Con- 
federates planted squarely across the road. As the van thus came 
in front of the enemy's works, the rear-guard was firing its part- 
ing shots on the field of the Wilderness. 

Ere night, the two armies were again face to face. Two weeks 




GRANT S CAMPAIGN AROUND RICHMOND. 



570 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [*■■£ 

of cautious watching followed, with the planting of an occasional 
blow on either side, as opportunity offered. The trees along the 
front were full of sharp-shooters, picking off the officers. On the 
9th, General Sedgwick was out superintending the planting of a 
battery under a heavy fire. Seeing some of his men wincing as 
the Minie-balls hissed past, he bantered them, saying, " Pooh ! 
they can't hit an elephant at this distance." That very moment, this 
excellent officer was himself struck full in the face, and fell dead. 

The next day, repeated assaults were made on the Confederate 
works, ending with one by twelve picked regiments under Colonel 
Upton. By a sudden dash, they broke through the line, and then 
turned right and left. Efforts were made to support the attack, 
but in vain. The Federals had gained no advantage, but had lost 
ten thousand men. From the midst of this slaughter, Grant 
telegraphed to Washington, " I propose to fight it out on this 
line if it takes all summer." 

The 1 2th witnessed a yet more desperate enterprise. Before 
dawn, Hancock's corps was drawn up twelve hundred yards in 
front of a salient of Lee's works. Shrouded by the fog of the 
early morning, it swept out of the wood, and, breaking into a 
double-quick, dashed through the entrenchments, surrounding 
a division and taking three thousand prisoners, including two 
generals. Officers were captured at their breakfast. The sur- 
prise was as complete as that of the Union army at Shiloh, but the 
result showed the difference between veterans and raw troops. 

At this critical moment, Lee formed a new line in the rear. 
" With his eyes all ablaze with the fire of battle," says his biog- 
rapher Cooke, " he rode down to a standard, and, taking off his , 
hat, pointed to the Federals. A storm of cheers rose as the men 
saw they were to be led by the gray cavalier himself. Just then, 
General Gordon seized his reins, saying, ' General Lee, this is no 
place for you. Go to the rear. These are Virginians and Geor- 
gians, sir, who have never failed.' Turning to his troops, and 
rising in his stirrups, he called out, ' Men, you will not fail now?' 
' No ! no ! ' was the reply, while the cry ran down the line, ' Lee 
to the rear! Lee to the rear!' " As at the battle of the Wilder- 
ness when Lee placed himself at the head of Gregg's Texans, the 
column would not charge until he retired out of harm's way. 

Five desperate attempts were made to recover the works. 
The fighting was furious ; oftentimes the contending battle-flags 
were planted on the same entrenchments. So severe was the 



Ma |864. 12 '] BATTLE OF SrOTTSYLVANIA. 57 1 

musketry fire, that the whole forest was blighted by it. " One 
tree, eighteen inches in diameter, was actually cut in two by the 
bullets. From dawn to dusk, the roar of the guns was ceaseless ; 
a tempest of shell shrieked through the forest and plowed the 
field. When night came, the angle where the fire had been hot- 
test had a spectacle for whoever cared to look that would never 
have enticed his gaze again. Men in hundreds, killed and 
wounded, were piled in hideous heaps — some bodies, that had 
lain for hours under the concentric fire of the battle, being per- 
forated with wounds. The writhing of the wounded beneath the 
dead moved these masses at times ; and occasionally a lifted arm 
or a quivering limb told of an agony not quenched by the Lethe 
of death around. Bitter fruit this ; a dear price it seemed to pay 
for the capture of a salient angle of an enemy's entrenchment." 

Each side had lost about ten thousand men, and nothing was 
really gained. Lee's new position was only a few yards in the rear, 
and the foothold so desperately fought for was finally abandoned. 

While the struggle was going on before Spottsylvania, Sheri- 
dan, with his cavalry, passed in the rear of the Confederates ; 
destroyed miles of railroad ; recaptured four hundred Union pris- 
oners ; defeated a cavalry force which barred his progress, with 
the loss of their famous officer, Stuart ; entered the outer defences 
of Richmond ; and then returned to the Union army in time to 
take part in the ensuing engagement. 

Grant, finding that all attempts to drive Lee from his post upon 
the River Po were useless, resorted to the favorite tactics of the 
year. Carefully withdrawing his troops from right to left, he set 
out for the North Anna. Lee, also, started in the same direction. 
When the Union advance troops reached the bank of that river, 
they found the gray-coats waiting on the opposite side to receive 
them. Thus again Lee had handled his men so admirably as to 
checkmate his antagonist. 

Grant once more turned the Confederate line on its right flank, 
crossed the Pamunkey at Hanovertown, and proceeded to Cold 
Harbor, where, as usual, he found the Confederate army barring 
his road to the capital. At the first streak of light on the morning 
of June 3d, the Union forces moved swiftly out of their entrench- 
ments and fell desperately upon the Confederate works. In little 
over a half hour, they returned defeated, leaving fully ten thou- 
sand of their number " stretched writhing on the sod, or still and 
calm in death." Later in the day, Meade directed the corps-com* 



572 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ M %64."^ 

manders to renew the attempt ; but, appreciating- the uselessness 
of this butchery, the army quietly disregarded the order. 

The two armies were now coming upon ground familiar to the 
veterans. Gaines's Mill was in the rear of the Confederate centre, 
while the White House was the Union base of supplies. 

Before Grant started on this Overland Campaign, as it is 
called, he had arranged for two co-operative movements, in order 
to distract the attention of the Confederate army in Virginia. 
The first was for a column under General Sigel to advance up the 
Shenandoah and threaten the railroad to Richmond. This force 
having been defeated at New Market, May 15th, Hunter took 
command and pushed down as far as Lynchburg, but finding the 
Confederates mustering before him, he prudently retired across 
the Mountains into West Virginia. 

The second was an expedition under General Butler. With 
thirty thousand men, he was directed to ascend the James and 
attack Richmond from the south. He accordingly went up from 
Fortress Monroe and landed at Bermuda Hundred. Here he 
was surprised by Beauregard and forced back into his defences. 
The Confederates threw up fortifications across the narrow neck 
connecting Bermuda Hundred with the main land, and so held 
the army securely " corked up," as the phrase of the times termed 
it. Thus both expeditions, which had promised much, failed 
utterly. 

It had not taken "all summer" to prove the impossibility of 
reaching Richmond from the north. That line of advance must 
now be abandoned, and a second change of base to the James 
River be effected. Bitter experience had shown the essential 
wisdom of McClellan's original plan so long discarded. Grant 
accordingly decided to cross the James, seize Petersburg, and cut 
the railroads leading south from Richmond. Then began the feat 
of throwing one hundred and thirty thousand men over a broad 
stream in the presence of a vigilant enemy. The Federal army, 
with its trains in a continuous line, would have crowded a single 
road for a hundred miles. Cavalry feints veiled the movement. 
Pontoons and ferry-boats were soon on the spot. Every road and 
lane through a wide expanse was filled by the hurrying troops. 
Divisions frequently traveled twenty miles to gain a quarter of 
that distance. For three days and nights the vast procession 
poured over by bridge and boat before all had passed. 

Meanwhile, Grant pushed on a detachment to secure Peters- 



June, 
1864 



BEFORE PETERSBURG. 



573 



burg. General W. F. Smith, who commanded the advance, skir- 
mished up to the fortifications of that city, which were held only 
by some local militia. He carried the outer line ; but at this pie- 
cious moment, though the night was clear and the moon full, he 
rested till morning, "after the old but not good fashion of '61-2, " 
says Greeley. Daybreak showed long lines of Confederate troops 
filing into the trenches, and the battle-flags of the army of Northern 
Virginia flaunting defiance. It was too late for a surprise. 

The main body of his army having arrived, Grant repeatedly 
tried to carry the works. Four days of slaughter cost nine thou- 
sand men, and secured only a single 
line of entrenchments, while Lee 
held stubbornly an inner one, which 
he had carefully fortified. Grant 
then swung his attacking columns 
to the left to seize the Weldon Rail- 
road. Disaster followed, and he 
was driven back inside his former 
position. In this fruitless attempt 
four thousand men were killed or 
wounded. That this event was not 
mentioned in the military report 
and has received no specific name, 
shows the enormous proportions 
the war had assumed, and how 
changed it was from the time when Big Bethel and Ball's Bluff 
were esteemed great battles. 

The end of June had come. The Southern army behind its 
strong entrenchments was safe against any assault. Grant was 
compelled to sit down and begin regular approaches. The cam- 
paign had at last resolved itself into a siege of Richmond with 
Petersburg as its advanced post. The On-to-Richmond move- 
ment of this year, like its predecessors, had proved a failure. 
" Grant had sent the Confederate army," says Draper, " reeling 
and dripping with blood from the banks of the Rapidan to the 
James, but at what a fearful expense ! " He had lost at least 
seventy thousand men to the Confederate forty thousand, or, 
as some say, twenty -eight thousand. The " process of attri- 
tion," which, according to Grant's favorite theory, was to sub- 
due the Confederacy by destroying its soldiers, seemed a slow, it 
was certainly a costly, process. Lee's army had hewn out of the 




GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



574 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [, J - uly ' 



-1864. 



Union ranks more than its own number, and yet remained appar- 
ently as unconquerable as ever. The On-to-Atlanta movement, at 
this time, had not been any more successful. Grant and Sherman 
were both apparently balked of their object. Their paths could 
be traced through a hundred miles of wilderness by the graves 
they had filled. The depression at the North was deep and anx- 
ious. In July occurred two events — a raid to Washington, and 
the mine disaster — which greatly augmented the gloom. 

The retreat of Hunter had left the way to the national capital 
invitingly open. . Lee accordingly detached a force under Early 
to advance upon that city. This officer moved down the Shenan- 
doah under a summer's sun, at the rate of twenty miles per day ; 
crossed the Potomac ; defeated a small militia force under General 
Lew Wallace at Monocacy Bridge ; and on the evening of July 
ioth, came within six miles of Washington. Great was the alarm 
in the Federal city. The fire of the Confederate skirmishers 
could be heard at the White House. The forts were garrisoned 
only by troops from the invalid corps, three-months men, depart- 
ment clerks, and others who volunteered for the emergency. 
Early delayed a day. Meanwhile, the Sixth corps sent on from 
before Petersburg, and the Nineteenth corps just arrived from 
the Gulf, reached the city. At the wharf they were met by 
Lincoln, who was anxiously watching for them. 

In the afternoon of the 12th, a reconnoissance was pushed out 
from Fort Stevens. As the Confederates saw the line of battle 
move forward, and caught sight of the familiar flags and the easy, 
swinging gait of the veterans, they cried, " The Sixth corps has 
come," and knew that the long-coveted prize had escaped their 
grasp. That night, Early retreated into Virginia, carrying with 
him five thousand horses and twenty-five hundred cattle. The 
pursuit was very mild. Subsequently a Confederate raiding party 
recrossed the Potomac and burned Chambersburg, in default of a 
ransom of half a million dollars. 

That Lee should dare thus to divide his force in front of 
Grant, in order to make this bold inroad, and that Early should 
escape unscathed, were matters of deep humiliation at the North. 
Davis, with some show of fact, declared that " Washington, not 
Richmond, was besieged." 

For several weeks, the troops belonging to Burnside's corps 
had been busy digging a mine under the Confederate entrench- 
ments before Petersburg. They began in a secluded ravine back 



J fe v 64?'] THE MINE EXPLOSION. 575 

of the Union lines. The work was pushed forward with great 
diligence, though the men had nothing but cracker-boxes in 
which to remove the dirt. The main shaft, five hundred and 
twenty feet long, reached to a point directly under the enemy's 
position, with laterals running forty feet each way. A charge of 
eight thousand pounds of powder was fired on the morning of 
July 30th. The explosion was terrific. A mass of earth, with 
mingled flame and smoke, shot high into the air. A gulf yawned 
in the Confederate works, one hundred and fifty feet long, sixty 
feet wide, and thirty feet deep. The battery and two hundred 
men stationed at this point were overwhelmed in the ruin. 
Instantly every gun along the Union entrenchments opened hre. 
Then was the time for a sudden, overwhelming charge upon the 
shattered line. But a delay occurred before the assaulting col- 
umn advanced. It only reached the chasm, and then halted. 
The Confederates, recovering from their confusion, planted bat- 
teries and brought every musket to bear upon the point of danger. 
Union reinforcements came up, but they, too, huddled into the 
crater. All organization was lost ; company mingled with com- 
pany, man on top of man. Into this struggling mass, the merciless 
shot and ball were poured, until the sight became so sickening 
that, it is said, General Mahone ordered the firing to stop. For 
eight hours death had held high carnival. The Federal loss in 
this " miserable affair," as Grant well termed it, was four thousand. 

The Federal government had already this year called out four 
hundred thousand additional troops. In the midst of this gloom, 
five hundred thousand, and still later, three hundred thousand 
more, were demanded. The national debt had reached two 
billion dollars. Gold had risen to 190^ premium. There was a 
possibility of giving up the effort to subdue the South. Indeed, a 
large party was in favor of abandoning hostilities at once. Still, 
however, the mass of the people held firm. Lincoln, who had 
been renominated by the Republicans for the presidency, was 
re-elected by a large majority ; though General McClellan, the 
Democratic candidate, advocated a vigorous prosecution of the 
war, and differed with the administration only in its policy. 

The repeated incursions into Maryland from the Shenandoah 
valley, and the demoralized condition of the Union troops in that 
department, induced Grant to send Sheridan thither. Having 
thoroughly organized his army, that dashing officer took the field 
with greatly superior forces. He had received, says Grant, only 



576 



FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



rSept.-Oct., 
L 1864. 



two words of instruction, " Go in! " September 19th, he routed 
Early at Winchester, and, two days after, drove him from his en- 
trenchments at Fisher's Hill, and sent him " whirling up the valley." 

Sheridan, returning, laid this lovely region waste, burning, 
according to his report, two thousand barns filled with wheat and 
hay ; seventy mills, stored with flour and grain ; and driving off 
or killing seven thousand cattle and sheep, besides a number of 
horses. The axe and the torch finished what the sword had left. 

Having posted his army at Cedar Creek, Sheridan went to 
Washington. During his absence, Early rallied his shattered 
troops and being reinforced from Lee, surprised the national 




SHERIDAN S ARRIVAL AT CEDAR CREEK. 



forces in the fog and mist of early morning, October 19th, carried 
their camps, and pursued the fugitives four miles. General 
Wright, with a portion of the national army which remained 
intact, here rallied the men and checked the retreat. Sheridan 
was already returning, and at Winchester, thirteen miles away, 
heard 

" The terrible grumble and rumble and roar, 
Telling the battle was on once more." 

Putting spurs to his steed, he galloped to the front without 
drawing rein. Meanwhile, the Confederates had become scattered 
in plundering the captured camps. Sheridan, seeing the oppor- 
tunity of retrieving the disgrace, turned upon the enemy, recap- 
tured all that had been lost, and struck such a telling blow that 
Early escaped with only the wreck of his army. 






Feb i864 arCh ' WAR IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 577 

This brilliant campaign had lasted only a month, but it ended 
the war in the Shenandoah. It had cost the Union forces nearly 
seventeen thousand, and the Confederates, according to their own 
accounts, eight thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery. "At 
the time," says Pollard, " wags in Richmond were accustomed to 
label cannon designed for the valley, ' General Sheridan, care of 
Jubal Early.' " 

During this year, the war in the Mississippi valley had lan- 
guished, as the necessities of the contest in Georgia and Virginia 
had drawn off nearly all the available troops. Sherman, before he 
was called to Grant's aid at Chattanooga, made a destructive 
foray to Meridian, the intersection of the Southern Mississippi 
and the Mobile and Ohio railroad. General W. S. Smith was to 
join him with seven thousand cavalry from Memphis, and move 
on to Selma. But Smith fell in with Forrest's troopers, who 
dove him back. Sherman, however, destroyed " one hundred 
and fifty miles of railroad, sixty-seven bridges, seven hundred 
trestles, twenty locomotives, twenty-eight cars, several thousand 
bales of cotton, several steam-mills, and over two million bushels 
of corn." 

Thousands of fugitive slaves accompanied the column on its 
return, as they did afterward in the March to the Sea. They 
came, says an eye-witness, " some on foot, some on horseback, 
some in ox-carts. Some were clad in their ' Sunday-best,' the 
cast-off clothes of their masters. Of the women, some had ban- 
dana handkerchiefs twisted in turban-fashion round their heads, 
or were decorated with scraps of ribbon and fantastic finery of 
every conceivable hue. I saw one carrying a little child in her 
arms ; she had another on her back, and still another was holding 
by her skirts. The father strode in front; a pile of bundles was 
sustained by a stick on his shoulder, and all sorts of kitchen uten- 
sils and household trumpery were hanging upon his body. So 
vast was the crowd, that families were separated, and women and 
children lost in the throng." 

Early in March, after the brief Meridian campaign, a joint land 
and naval expedition was organized under General Banks, then in 
command at New Orleans, to ascend the Red River in order to 
capture Shreveport, the seat of the Confederate government of 
Louisiana. The advance carried Fort de Russy by assault, March 
14th, and two days after entered Alexandria. At Natchitoches 
the road diverged from the river, and the army was compelled to 
37 



578 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ Ap f864! ay ' 

lose the protection of the gun-boats. No enemy, however, was 
seen until the advance was passing through a dense pine-forest 
near Mansfield, when it was suddenly attacked by the Confeder- 
ates under General Kirby Smith. The Union troops, scattered 
along the road for a distance of thirty miles, and encumbered with 
baggage-trains, were unable to make any effective resistance. A 
sudden panic seized the men, and they fled wildly, leaving wagons 
and guns to the enemy. At Pleasant Hill, the fugitives were 
rallied on the main body. Here the pursuit was stopped the 
next day by the veterans of Emory's and A. J. Smith's divisions. 
Banks, however, decided to abandon the expedition. He accord- 
ingly fell back to the river, leaving the dead unburied and. aban- 
doning the wounded. The retreat of the gun-boats was a difficult 
task. The water was falling, and the Confederates swarmed in 
the woods along the banks and planted batteries at every favor- 
able point. At Alexandria, it was feared that it would be neces- 
sary to blow up the vessels to prevent their falling into the 
enemy's hands. Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, formerly a Wisconsin 
lumberman, came to the rescue. He constructed a series of 
wing-dams, and thus raised the water so that the boats were 
safely floated over the rapids. 

This skillful expedient was almost the only relieving feature 
of a campaign which cost the Union army three thousand men 
and twenty pieces of artillery. There were rumors that the ex- 
pedition was undertaken simply as a gigantic cotton speculation. 
As the army advanced, wagons were scouring the country, gins 
were being erected, and the marines were busily gathering this 
staple. Transports came off loaded with cotton bales, while the 
Union people of Alexandria, who begged to be taken away, were 
abandoned. 

General Fred. Steele, who was stationed at Little Rock, had 
advanced toward Shreveport to co-operate with Banks ; but learn- 
ing of that general's retreat, he fell back as rapidly as possible. 
He was greatly harassed by the accumulating forces of the enemy, 
but managed to reach Little Rock again. This disaster restored 
to the Confederacy a large part of the State. 

After defeating Smith's cavalry at Okalona, Forrest captured 
Jackson, Tennessee, and then advanced rapidly upon Paducah, 
Kentucky. Here the garrison of Fort Anderson, aided by the 
gun-boats, defended itself stoutly and drove him off. Moving 
south, he next fell upon Fort Pillow, April 12th. His troops crept 



Aug. 5,1 
1864. J 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE. 



5^9 



along under shelter of a ravine until very near, and then charged 
upon the entrenchments. Rushing into the fort, they raised the 
cry, "No quarter!" "The Confederate officers," says Pollard, 
" lost control of their men, who were maddened by the sight of 
negro troops opposing them." An indiscriminate slaughter fol- 
lowed. Neither age nor color was spared. 

The war along the coast this year comprised several important 
events. August 5th, Admiral Farragut ran past the forts at the 




NAVAL BATTLE IN MOBILE BAY. 



entrance of Mobile Bay. The 
admiral was stationed in the rig- 
ging of the flag-ship Hartford, 
whence he could watch the move- 
ments of his fleet. The lead- 
ing monitor, Tecumseh, struck a 
torpedo and sunk, carrying down nearly all her crew. As the 
vessels swept past the forts, they fired such broadsides of grape 
and canister as drove the cannoneers from their guns. Then came 
a desperate fight with the Confederate ram Tennessee and three 
supporting gun-boats. Detaching several vessels to engage the 
latter, Farragut signalled the others to attack the ram, not only 
with their guns but by dashing upon it at full-speed. In antici- 
pation of this, the wooden ships had been provided with false bows 



580 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ N °i864. eC ' 

of iron. The odds were overpowering-. True, not a shot pene- 
trated the thick armor of the Tennessee, but the shutters of one 
of her port-holes was destroyed, and thus a vulnerable point was 
presented. Such was the accuracy of the firing, that it is said ten 
shots struck close to this port ; while a fragment of a shell entered 
through it and wounded Admiral Buchanan, who commanded the 
Merrimac in Hampton Roads, and was also injured in that en- 
gagement. The ram was soon sore beset on every side by blows 
of beak and ball. After sustaining the battle for over an hour 
single-handed against half the Union fleet, it surrendered. 

The forts capitulated soon after, and thus the port of Mobile 
was closed. The city itself was not taken until the surrender of 
Lee and his army had already decided the war. 

Late in the fall, a naval expedition under the command of Ad- 
miral Porter, and a fleet of transports carrying about six thou- 
sand five hundred troops under Generals Butler and Weitzel, 
attempted the capture of Fort Fisher and the other defences 
guarding the entrance to Wilmington, a famous rendezvous for 
blockade-runners. Grant intended that General Weitzel should 
command the troops. Mrs. Willard naively remarks upon this : 
" General Butler, through whom, as the superior officer, the in- 
structions were sent, put them in his pocket, and went himself. 
Grant did not dream that Butler would take the direction, and 
thought that he went merely to see the explosion of a boat laden 
with powder, which he had prepared at great expense and delay, 
as if fancying that the mud walls of Fort Fisher would lall at the 
noise, as the walls of Jericho did at the sound of Joshua's trum- 
pets. On the morning of November 24th, the powder-boat was 
exploded, but with so little effect that the Confederates did not 
know the object of it until they were informed by the Northern 
newspapers." It is said that the Southern commander, Colonel 
Lamb, supposed the noise was caused by the bursting of a heavy 
gun on the fleet. 

After a brief bombardment and a reconnoissance, Butler and 
Weitzel, deeming the fort too strong for an assault, re-embaiked 
their troops and returned to Fortress Monroe. The war-vessels, 
however, remained, and Porter was anxious for a new attempt. 
Grant, therefore, sent back the same soldiers with a small rein- 
forcement, but this time under General A. H. Terry. By a 
tremendous fire from the ships he compelled the garrison to 
keep under the shelter of the bomb-proofs. Meanwhile a body 



J ?865?'] SECOND ATTACK ON FORT FISHER. 58 1 

of sailors and marines, by digging ditches and rifle-pits, cautiously 
worked its way within two hundred yards of the fort. On the 
land-side, the troops also advanced under shelter and lay ready 
for the assault. At three P. M., January 14th, the steam-whistles 
gave the signal. Both columns dashed forward. The fleet had 
to stop its guns, as their fire would be liable to injure the attack- 
ing parties. The Confederates instantly swarmed out upon the 
wails. The Federal ranks were swept by grape and canister and 
volleys of musketry. The sailors were repulsed. But the other 
column broke through the palisade and effected a lodgment on 
the parapet. Reinforcements came up ; nine successive traverses 
were carried ; the sailors joined in the me'Je, and near midnight 
the garrison was driven from every defence to the water's edge 
and forced to surrender. In reading the account of this assault, 
one knows not which to admire the more, the heroism of the 
defence or the gallantry of the attack. " In foreign countries," 
remarks Draper, " it was often said that the reunion of the States 
after the close of the war was a political impossibility. In Amer- 
ica there was a very different opinion. Conquered and conquer- 
ors looked upon each other with pride." 

The neighboring works were now abandoned by the Con- 
federates, and this port of entry was sealed. After the victory at 
Nashville, General Scofield came with a corps from the Army of 
the Tennessee, and occupied Wilmington on the anniversary of 
Washington's birthday. 

The Confederate privateers having been captured or driven 
from the ocean, the Richmond authorities made arrangements in 
Great Britain, at the ship-yards of Liverpool and Glasgow, for 
building their war-steamers. The Tallahassee, the Chickamauga, 
and the Shenandoah were accordingly fitted out in British ports. 
Th'^y sailed under the British flag. They were manned by British 
sailors, and welcomed in British ports. The commerce of the 
United States was nearly annihilated by them. In 1863 alone, one 
thousand American ships were sold to foreign merchants. 

The most noted of the Anglo-Confederate cruisers was the 
Alabama, Captain Semmes. This ship was built by Laird, a mem- 
ber of the British Parliament. She is said to have destroyed sixty- 
five American vessels and their cargoes, valued at ten million 
dollars. In June, 1864, she went to Cherbourg, France. Captain 
Winslow, of the United States gun-boat Kearsarge, learning of 
her arrival, immediately sailed thither, Semmes, anxious for the 




THE ALABAMA. 



582 FOURTH YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ J ^64 9 

duel, came out into the open sea, Sunday, June 19th. He left 
with his friends on shore a chest of coin and sixty-two chro- 
nometers, the relics of his buccaneering exploits. In a speech to 
his men before the engagement, he repeated the words of Nelson 
" England expects every man to do his duty ! " The Kearsarge 

immediately steamed to with- 
in nine hundred yards of her 
antagonist, when she began to 
circle about her, firing slowly 
and deliberately. At the sev- 
enth round, the Alabama ran 
up the white flag, and soon 
sank. Capt. Winslow picked 
up a part of her crew, and 
the rest were rescued by the 
boats of the Deerhound, a British yacht which accompanied the 
Alabama. No one was killed on the Kearsarge. One sailor, how- 
ever, William Gowin, was mortally wounded, but he refused to go 
below, and sat on deck through the fight waving his hat and en- 
couraging his comrades. After the battle was over he was taken 
to the hospital, exclaiming, " I am willing to die for my country 
since our ship got the victory ! " 

The whole South was now a vast beleaguered camp. The 
lines of circumvallation had been drawn so closely as nearly to 
cut off supplies. It was impossible to secure sufficient medicines 
for the sick or clothing for the well. The price of foreign goods 
in Confederate money had become fabulous. Coffee was sold at 
fifty dollars per pound ; calico at thirty dollars per yard ; and kid 
gloves at one hundred and twenty-five dollars to one hundred and 
seventy-five dollars per pair. The enormous profits of a success- 
ful venture led many European merchants to attempt to run the 
blockade of the Confederate ports. Swift steamers, sitting low in 
the water and painted of a neutral color, were constantly hover* 
ing along the Southern coast watching for a chance to dart past 
the Federal cruisers into port and land their cargoes. The activ- 
ity of the Union navy may be estimated from the fact that during 
the war it captured or destroyed over fifteen hundred ships, worth, 
with their cargoes, about fifty million dollars. The stringency 
of the blockade thus largely prevented not only the ingress of 
foreign supplies, but also the egress of cotton, by the sale of 
which the Southern government could alone procure funds for 
the prosecution of the war- 



1864.] 



CONFEDERATE FINANCES AND COMMISSARIAT 



583 



The Confederate currency had depreciated until fifty dollars 
would bring but one in specie, and finally its own officials publicly 
exchanged it in Richmond for gold at a premium of 5900 %. The 
cost of all articles of trade took on prices corresponding with this 
shrinkage, unprecedented since Revolutionary times. Many of 
the soldiers of the Confederate army had not been paid for two 
years, and when their pittance was received, it required three 
dollars to buy a loaf of bread, while a month's wages would 
scarcely procure a pair of stockings or a substantial dinner. The 
transportation of food to the army at Richmond over the worn- 
out railroads became difficult, and the rations of the soldiers were 
often only " a quarter of a pound of rancid bacon and a little 
coarse corn-meal." Shoeless, ragged, and weak with hunger, it is 
not strange that desertions materially diminished the strength of 
the " Army of Northern Virginia," especially when the homes of 
the soldiers were so constantly threatened alike by want and the 
incursions of the Federals. 




GENERAL SHERIDAN. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



LAST YEA(R OF THE CIVIL WA^k—1863. 




>.^^ <3# ~-££ 



HE plan of the final campaign was 
simple. All depended on the issue 
of the struggle before Richmond. 
Upon this focus the Union forces 
were converged from every side. 
February 27th, Sheridan, with ten 
thousand cavalry, swept down 
from the Shenandoah, cut the 
railroad communications north of 
Richmond, and in a month from 
the time of starting took his place 
in the Union lines before Peters- 
burg. Wilson, with thirteen thou- 
sand horsemen, raided from Eastport on the Tennessee through 
Alabama, capturing " Selma, Columbus and Macon, with six thou- 
sand eight hundred and twenty prisoners, two hundred and 
eighty pieces of artillery, twenty-two stands of colors ; destroying 
two gun-boats, ninety-nine thousand small arms, besides two hun- 
dred and thirty-five thousand bales of cotton, and all the mills, 
collieries, iron works, factories, arsenals, railroad bridges and 
rolling stock in the line of march." Stoneman, with five thousand 
cavalry from Knoxville, Tennessee, poured through the passes of 
the Alleghanies, captured Salisbury, North Carolina, ransacked its 
depots of supplies, and destroyed all the railroad bridges within 
reach. 

Early in February, Sherman, having rested and refitted his 
army, set out on his march northward to join Grant. Heavy 
rains impeded his progress. His route lay through morasses, and 
rice-fields flooded with water. The rivers overran their banks 
and the swamps became lakes. The bridges had been burned and 
the roads barred with felled trees by the Confederate cavalry. 



f 8 « 6 b 5;] SHERMAN'S MARCH THROUGH THE CAROLINAS. 585 

But the Federal troops, who had fought their way across the 
Alleghanies and made the March to the Sea, were not to be 
stopped by any ordinary obstacle. They built bridges, made 
corduroy roads, waded swamps, and, at the Salkehatchie, fought 
with the water up to their armpits. 

In Georgia, few dwelling-houses had been burned, but in 
South Carolina, destruction and pillage became the rule ; officers 
and men uniting to bring home to the State which had inau- 
gurated the war, its bitterest curse. Columns of smoke marked 
the progress of the troops. The heavens were black even at mid- 
day. " Bummers," with a keen scent for valuables, scoured the 
country far in advance of the army. 

Columbia, the capital of the State, was taken, February 17th. 
That night saw the city in flames and nearly reduced to ashes. 
During the march thither, in order to prevent a concentration 
of the Confederate forces, strong demonstrations had been made 
toward Augusta and Charleston. Hardee, at the latter place, 
finding that Sherman had reached Branchville, evacuated the 
city, February 18th; on leaving, he set fire to the buildings in 
which cotton was stored. A quantity of powder having been left 
at the Northwestern railroad station, the boys amused themselves 
by throwing handfuls of it upon the flames. The powder which 
they spilt soon formed a train, along which the fire leaped to the 
depot. A tremendous explosion followed, killing two hundred 
persons. The fire spread rapidly, and, in spite of the efforts of 
the Union troops who quickly came to the rescue from Morris's 
Island, four entire squares were consumed. 

The siege of Charleston had lasted five hundred and forty -two 
days. This stronghold had fallen at last, not before the prowess 
of its besiegers, but by the strategy of a general who never 
paused in his victorious march to seize his prize. The scars of 
war were manifest through a large part of the city. An eye- 
witness says : " No pen, no pencil, no tongue can do justice to the 
scene ; no imagination can conceive the utter wreck, the universal 
ruin, the stupendous desolation. Ruin, ruin, ruin, above and 
below, on the right hand and on the left — ruin, ruin, ruin, every- 
where and always, staring at us from every paneless window, 
looking out at us from every shell-torn wall, glaring at us from 
every battered door, pillar and veranda, crouching beneath our 
feet on every sidewalk. Not Pompeii, nor Herculaneum, nor Tad- 
mor, nor the Nile, has ruins so saddening, so plaintively eloquent." 



586 



LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TMarc^i, 
L I86< 



The Confederate government now recalled Johnston to unite 
the o-arrisons of Charleston, Wilmington and Columbia, in order 
to make head against the triumphant progress of Sherman's army, 
which had already reached Fayetteville, North Carolina. These 
old antagonists met again. But Johnston could do little with the 
means at hand. So low had the military spirit of the Confederacy 
sunk, that Hardee's army, in marching from Charleston to Averys- 
boro, had been reduced, mainly by desertion, from eighteen thou- 
sand to six thousand men. Sharp engagements with the heads of 
the advancing columns took place at Averysboro, March 15th, 




SHERMAN AT THE HEAD OF HIS TROOPS. 



and three days later at Bentonville. While Johnston was guard- 
ing the route to Raleigh, Sherman pushed forward to Goldsboro, 
in order to join General Schofield, who had made his way thither 
from Wilmington, and General Terry, who had come up from 
Newbern. Their three armies having united, one hundred thou- 
sand men upheld the Flag of the Union along the banks of the 
Neuse. Sherman then went to City Point to arrange with Grant 
the plan of the final campaign against Richmond. 

Lee's position was fast becoming desperate. Though there 
were one hundred and fifty thousand men on his muster-rolls, he 
had but forty thousand present for duty. His only hope lay in 
breaking through his environment and joining Johnston's forces. 
Accordingly, March 25th, he hurled a strong column upon Fort 



March,"! 
1865. J 



THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 



587 



Steadman at the right of the Union line, hoping- that Grant would 
weaken his left to meet this attack, and thus give the Confederate 
army a chance of escape. This forlorn hope eventuated in a repe- 
tition of the mine disaster ; the Southern troops being this time 
the victims. The fort was carried ; but reinforcements did not 
arrive. The batteries on the right and left commanding the posi- 
tion opened fire. The assaulting division could not advance, and 
dared not retreat. Two thousand men laid down their arms. 
Meade followed up this success by a brilliant dash and carried 
the Confederate picket lines, taking many prisoners. 

Grant had not stirred his left. The heavy " hammer" which 
he had lifted so often was now about to fall for the last time. The 
plan was the old one of " moving 
by the left." Two corps of infantry 
had been withdrawn from the right 
without attracting the attention of 
Longstreet, who was in their front. 
With these and nine thousand troop- 
ers Sheridan moved out, March 29th, 
to pass the Confederate right and 
destroy the Southside Railroad. 
Lee perceived the design. In or- 
der to meet Grant as he gradually 
stretched his lines westward, Lee 
had already extended his fortifica- 
tions till they were nearly forty miles 
in length. It was a desperate alter- 
native, but, by stripping his entrenchments until at many points 
there was left only a strong skirmish line, he was able to mass 
seventeen thousand men on his right wing. 

Sheridan's intention was to keep his infantry snug to the 
Confederate right, while with the horsemen he should sweep far 
around to grasp the railroad. By night-fall he had occupied Din- 
widdie Court-House. Encouraged by this success, Grant wrote 
him, " I feel now like ending this matter. Push around the enemy 
and get in his rear." Sheridan at once abandoned his design ol 
cutting loose for a cavalry raid. The next day the rain prevented 
any further movement. March 31st, ere he could attack the Con- 
federate lines, Lee, with the old Peninsular impetuosity, himself 
took the initiative. The storm burst with fearful force. It fell 
first on Warren at White Oak Ridge, but he succeeded in beat- 




GENERAL JOSEPH E. 



JOHNSTON. 



588 LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [* P |865. 2, 

ing it back. Then it struck Sheridan, whose advance had already 
seized upon Five Forks — a strategic point of great value. The 
Federals were overpowered. Dismounting his troopers, Sheridan 
deployed them in the woods, leaving only enough men to take 
care of the horses. His line then fell back, stubbornly resisting. 
During its slow retreat, Sheridan got his troops in hand, and, 
throwing them behind the entrenchments at Dinwiddie, stopped 
the Confederates. 

April ist, Sheridan again moved upon Five Forks. The 
cavalry, pushed up in front of the Confederate works, formed a 
screen, behind which Warren with the Fifth Corps, twelve thou- 
sand strong, got into the enemy's rear. Attacking front, flank, 
and rear at once, the Federals swept all before them, captured the 
entrenchments, and pursued the Confederates six miles down the 
White Oak road, taking five thousand prisoners. 

It was the beginning of the end. That night every cannon in 
the Union batteries before Petersburg was in full play. At dawn, 
the entire Union line from the Appomattox to Hatcher's Run 
leaped from behind its entrenchments, and poured in an over- 
whelming flood upon the Confederate works. All opposition was 
crushed by the irresistible force of the onset. The outer line was 
taken in the first fierce rush. Fort Alexander, in the rear, fell 
next. Fort Gregg, however, made a stout defence. Three times 
the assailants were repulsed ; on the fourth charge they swept over 
the crest. Of the gallant little garrison of two hundred and fifty 
men, only thirty survived. 

General A. P. Hill was at the headquarters of General Lee 
discussing the prospects of the day. Suddenly, Lee, listening, 
said, " General, your men are giving way." Hill quickly mounted 
his horse and dashed down the road. As he was spurring on, he 
caught a glimpse of several Federals Avith rifles leveled upon him. 
" Throw down your arms ! " he commanded. For an instant the 
men hesitated, but the next moment the clang of their pieces was 
heard, and General Hill fell dead. 

In this crisis of his fortunes, says his biographer Cooke, Lee 
was clad in a new uniform, and had put on his dress-sword, which 
he seldom wore, declaring that if he must surrender it should be in 
full harness. From the lawn in front he saw the Federal infantry 
moving forward at the double-quick, their bayonets flashing in 
the April sun ; the Union batteries were seizing the neighboring 
knolls, whence they quickly opened on his fleeing troops ; while 



April 2, 3, 
1865. 



FALL OF RICHMOND. 



589 



on every hand buildings set on fire by the fast-falling shells were 
sending up volumes of smoke and flame. Mounting, he escaped 
only by spurring his steed into a gallop, under a heavy fire. 

Lee then gathered his men into the inner line of works, and 
immediately sent word to the civil authorities that Richmond 
must be surrendered. The messenger reached Davis in his seat 
at St. Paul's Church. With pallid face, the ruined president 
hastily retired. The fatal news startled the people like a thunder- 
clap from the clear sky. Suddenly, the streets, which had before 
been so silent, were filled with men hastening to escape with their 




CITY OF RICHMOND. 



effects from the doomed city. The excitement was like that in the 
front of a sweeping conflagration. A hundred dollars in gold 
were paid for the use of a wagon for a single hour. Night in- 
creased the disorder. The guards having been withdrawn, the 
inmates of the Penitentiary escaped. The mob got control of 
the city. Stores were broken open. Costly fabrics strewed the 
side-walks. The gutters ran with liquor. Confederate scrip was 
trampled in the mud. Men and women reeled through the streets 
staggering under the plunder they had secured. The yells of the 
crowd, the crash of broken glass, and the noise of mad revel, made 
the night hideous. 

Then came a new horror. General Ewell, in command of the 
Confederate rear-guard, having blown up the iron-clads in the 



596 LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ A |865* 

river, set fire to a large tobacco warehouse in the very heart of 
the city. The flames soon extended to the neighboring buildings, 
and thirty squares were laid in ashes. Amid the roar of the 
flames, the noise of falling buildings, the screams of women and 
children, the explosion of shells, and the ghastliness of the air 
thick with cinders, came the advance of the Federal army, driving 
before it the maddened crowd of plunderers. The Stars and 
Stripes soon floated from the Capitol ; order was restored in the 
streets ; soldiers were set at work fighting the fire ; and before 
night, every one was safe under the national protection. Yet sad 
indeed were the hearts of those who lay down by the side of 
blackened walls, amid the quiet of a great desolation, their hearts 
aching the while with " a dull sense that the work of years had 
been ruined and that all they possessed had been swept away." 

Meanwhile, Lee, with the wreck of his army, had been pushing 
rapidly toward Burkesville, at the junction of the Danville and 
Southside railroads. By daylight, April 3d, when the Union 
pickets were cautiously creeping over the deserted entrench- 
ments before Petersburg, he was already sixteen miles away. 

There was to be a different pursuit from that after Antietam or 
Gettysburg. Grant at once threw every man, horse and gun into 
the chase. 

Lee had sent instructions to have rations ready for his men at 
Amelia Court-House. On reaching this point, he found to his 
dismay that the Richmond authorities had ordered the supply- 
train thither on Sunday, without unloading. It was necessary 
to halt for two days, that the army might collect food in this 
impoverished country. Sheridan, with his cavalry, now got the 
start and struck the railroad at Jetersville, seven miles in advance 
of the Confederate army. The Fifth corps soon joined him. The 
victors of Five Forks were thus planted squarely across Lee's 
path, and he was forced to take a new route. He accordingly 
gave up joining Johnston and turned toward Lynchburg, whence 
he hoped to reach the cover of the mountains. 

Then began a terrible race for life. It lasted four days. 
Grant threw one column on the south and another on the north, 
while a third pressed upon the rear of the retreating army. 
Sheridan's cavalry hung on its flanks with dogged tenacity. 
Davies, with his command, struck the Confederate wagon-train 
at Paine's Cross-Roads, burned one hundred and eighty wagons, 
and captured five guns. The Confederate infantry closed in 



April 5, 6,T 
1865. J 



LEE'S RETREAT. 



591 



about him, but Gregg and Smith came to his help. Custer, with 
another division, pierced the Confederate line of march, destroy- 
ing four hundred wagons and taking sixteen guns. Crook's and 
Devin's brigades having joined him, together they cut off Ewall's 
-men, and by incessant charges kept them at bay until the Sixth 
corps came up, when they forced them to surrender, six thousand 




CAVALRY CHARGE ON THE CONFEDERATE WAGON-TRAIN. 



strong. Read, with a 

squadron of cavalry 

and two regiments of 

infantry, recklessly 

threw himself before 

Lee's column as it was about to cross the High Bridge over the 

Appomattox. The Confederates thrust his little force aside, and 

he was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with a Southern officer. Lee 

crossed the river, and by marching all night left his pursuers far 

behind. 

At dawn, however, the last of the Confederates, the debris of 
the retreat, had just crossed. General Mahone, who had charge 
of the rear, having established a line of defence, went back to the 
bridge and found the officer in command stupidly waiting for 
orders to fire it. Fuel was hastily brought together and the 



592 LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [^aes^' 

match applied. At that instant, the Federal skirmishers, coming 
up on the hill beyond, caught sight of the bridge and rushed 
forward. Under their dropping shots, the guard retreated. The 
Second corps soon arrived and captured the bridge with eighteen 
guns upon the bank. Pushing on rapidly, General Humphreys 
found Lee's army encamped in a strong position. He attempted 
to carry it, but was driven back with a loss of six hundred men. 

Under cover of the darkness, Lee continued his flight. The 
condition of his army was indeed woful. History has not 
recorded such a retreat since Napoleon fled from Moscow. 
Every mud-hole along the route was choked with blazing wagons, 
fired to prevent their capture. Ammunition trains were blown 
up, and the air resounded with exploding powder and bursting 
shells. Famine was fast doing its work on the jaded, starving 
men, who yet clung to their banners. Many dropped their guns 
from pure exhaustion. If they straggled in search of food, or laid 
down to catch a moment's rest, on their heels quickly thundered 
the remorseless enemy, who drove them on day and night. 
" Death itself," says an eye-witness, " was often welcomed as 
God's messenger in disguise." 

At midnight of the 8th, Custer, by a thirty-miles march, reached 
Appomattox Station, captured four trains loaded with supplies for 
Lee, drove back the Confederate advance, and took possession of 
the road in front of the fleeing enemy. Before dawn, Sheridan 
came up with the troops of Ord and Griffin. The road to Lynch- 
burg was closed. 

For two days Lee and Grant had been corresponding concern- 
ing a surrender, and the Union general had offered generous terms, 
hoping to prevent further bloodshed. Early in the morning of the 
9th, Lee, consulting with Longstreet and Mahone around his camp- 
fire, decided that if they should find infantry in front, there was 
no escape. General Gordon accordingly advanced with his corps, 
supported by Fitz Lee's cavalry. They dashed forward, driving 
Sheridan's troopers before them, when suddenly the Federal cav- 
alry drew aside to the right and left, revealing in the rear dense 
masses of infantry in solid battle-line. It was the last charge of 
the Army of Northern Virginia. A white flag appeared in the 
Confederate front. The battle was stayed. 

Lee, learning the result of Gordon's movement, requested an 
interview with Grant. The two generals accordingly met in the 
largest of the five houses in Appomattox, passing through a. 



April 9,n 
1865. I 



LEE'S SURRENDER. 



593 



yard blooming with spring flowers. There was no display, no 
sentiment. Simply greeting each other, they proceeded at once 
to business. Seated at a plain table they drew up the papers of 
surrender, exchanged bows, and parted. Lee returned to his 
headquarters. On his 
arrival, the lines of 
battle, no longer nec- 
essary, were quickly 
broken, and his men 
thronged about him 
for a farewell. He 
could only say in sup- 
pressed tones, and 
with eyes full of tears, 
"We have fought 
through the war to- 
gether. I have done 
the best I could for 
you." 

The Confederate 
army paraded for the 
last time on the 12th, 
just four years from 
the firing of the first 
gun on Sumter. At 
the signal, the men 

fixed bayonets, stacked guns, and threw over them their tat- 
tered colors, some reverently kissing the banners they had de- 
fended so long and so well. There were only eight thousand 
soldiers to lay down their arms, although twenty-seven thousand 
eight hundred and five were included in the surrender. They 
were then paroled and allowed to go home. Grant, with true 
delicacy, absented himself from the ceremony. Every effort was 
made to spare the feelings of the vanquished, and the Union troops, 
in that hour of triumph, shared the contents of their haversacks 
with their starving brethren. 

Sherman, learning of Lee's surrender, put his army in mo- 
tion to prevent Johnston's escape. On the 14th, he received a 
letter from that officer relative to a capitulation. An interview 
took place near Durham's Station, and terms were arranged for 
disbanding the remaining armies of the Confederacy. Besides 
38 




LEE AND GRANT SIGNING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER. 



594 



LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



f May, 
L.I865 



this, however, the basis of a peace was agreed upon, which recog- 
nized the several State governments, and guaranteed to the people 
the elective franchise, their political rights, and a general amnesty. 
The memorandum was transmitted to Washington. Meanwhile, 
important events had there occurred which had materially changed 
the views of the authorities. The terms were rejected. Grant 
was sent to Sherman to take charge of affairs. Johnston had no 
resource but to surrender on the same conditions with Lee. 

The other Confederate troops rapidly followed. The situa- 
tion was universally accepted. Guerilla-bands everywhere threw 

down their arms. Peace came as 
by magic. Smith's trans -Missis- 
sippi army, the last Confederate 
force, surrendered to General Can- 
by, May 26th. The civil war was 
over. 

We left Davis passing out of 
St. Paul's Church, Richmond. He 
escaped to Danville, where he 
sought to re-establish the Confed- 
erate government. On the sur- 
render of Lee, he fled to Johnston's 
army. Finding the Confederacy 
generally despaired of, he con- 
tinued on to Charlotte, where his 
The fugitive president then hurried through 
A reward of one hundred thou- 




JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



cabinet forsook him. 
Georgia, hoping to reach Texas, 
sand dollars, however, had been offered for his arrest, and the 
Federals were on his track. May 10th, a detachment of Wilson's 
cavalry overtook his party while in camp at Irwinville. Lieu- 
tenant Stuart, of Davis's staff, says : " Hearing musketry-firing, 
we supposed it to be between some apprehended marauders and 
the camp-defenders. Mr. Davis hurriedly put on his boc :*, and 
prepared to go out for the purpose of interposing, saying, 

" ' They will at least as yet respect me.' 

" As he reached the tent-door, he saw a few cavalry ride ud the 
road and deploy in front. 

" ' Ha ! Federals ! ' was his exclamation. 

" ' Then you are captured ! ' cried Mrs. Davis. 

" In a moment she caught an idea — a woman's idea — ana, as 
quickly as women in an emergency execute their designs, it was 



A , p 8 r 65. 4 '] LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION. 595 

done. He slept in a wrapper — a loose one. It was yet around 
him. This she fastened, and bidding him adieu, urged him to go 
to the spring, a short distance off, where his horses and arms were. 
Davis felt that this was his only course, and complied. As he was 
leaving the door, followed by a servant with a water-bucket, Miss 
Howell flung a shawl over his head." As the three, Davis, his 
wife and sister, moved toward the woods, they were stopped in the 
gray dawn by a corporal's " Halt, or I'll fire ! " The disguise had 
failed and escape was hopeless. The ex-president's family were 
carried to Savannah and set at liberty ; while he was taken to 
Fortress Monroe. An indictment for treason was found against 
him, and the next year one for treason and conspiracy. In 1867, 
he was released on bail, Horace Greeley and John Minor Botts, 
among others, becoming his bondsmen. After various delays in 
bringing the case to trial, he was discharged under the Proclama- 
tion of Amnesty, December 25, 1868. 

We now turn to Washington, where, during these months 
pregnant with such momentous consequences to the country, a 
sad tragedy had been enacted. Lincoln, though he had vigor- 
ously pressed the war to its conclusion, now that peace had 
come thought only of reconciliation and mercy. " With malice 
toward none, with charity for all," his simple heart could not 
entertain the thought of that personal danger against which he 
had been so often warned. On the day after the fall of Rich- 
mond, he visited that city, walked its streets unguarded, and 
gave a public reception in Jefferson Davis's mansion. Having 
returned to Washington, it was announced that he would visit 
Ford's Theatre on the evening of the 14th, the anniversary of the 
fall of Sumter. Although feeling quite indisposed, he went in 
order not to disappoint the public. While sitting in his box with 
Mrs. Lincoln, a play-actor named John Wilkes Booth entered 
from behind and shot him through the head. The assassin then 
came forward, brandished a knife, and shouted Sic semper tyrannis 
— So always to tyrants. Endeavoring to leap to the stage, his 
spur caught in the flag draped in front of the box, and he fell, 
breaking his leg. He sprang up, however, and amid the confu- 
sion escaped behind the scenes. Lincoln dropped forward uncon- 
scious, and was removed to a private house, where he d.ed the 
next morning, without a sign of recognition or a parting word to 
the friends who watched so anxiously by his side. 

In the midst of the national rejoicings over the return cf peace, 



596 



LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



TApril 14-26, 
L I860. 



the tidings of the President's assassination came to every heart 
with a keen, sudden anguish. Fast upon this was flashed the 
news that at the same hour, an accomplice had forced his way to 
the bed of William H. Seward — who had been thrown from a 
carriage and was laid up with his injuries — severely wounded his 
son, and then stabbed the helpless secretary three times with a 
bowie-knife. The conspirators who were to assassinate other 
cabinet officers, together with Vice-President Johnson and Gen- 
eral Grant, had fortunately failed of their purpose. 




ASSASSINATION OF I'RF.-ilDENT LINCOLN. 



A thrill of horror ran over the civilized world. The North 
was outraged. For the moment, it was supposed that the late 
Confederate authorities were implicated. Sherman's terms of 
peace were at once rejected. The South found that in Abraham 
Lincoln it had lost a friend on whom it could rely, and that the 
work of reconciliation was greatly complicated by this act of a 
madman. 

Booth, after his escape, mounted a horse which was in readi- 
ness and fled into Maryland. He rode thirty miles before he 
dared to stop to have his leg set. Having crossed the Potomac, 
he was overtaken by his pursuers in a barn near Bowling Green. 
As he refused to surrender, the building was fired to drive him 
out. While he stood at bay, defiant, one of the soldiers shot him 
by the light of the flames. Singularly, the fatal wound was in 



1861-5.] COST OF THE WAR. 597 

nearly the same place as that of the martyred President. Booth's 
accomplices were arrested, tried by a military court and con- 
victed. Harold, who aided Booth ; Payne, who attacked Sew- 
ard ; Atzerodt, who was to have assassinated Johnson ; and Mrs. 
Surratt, at whose house the conspirators met, were hanged ; 
Arnold and O'Laughlin, who were also accomplices, and Dr. 
Mudd, who dressed Booth's wound, were imprisoned for life ; 
Spangler, who assisted the assassin in his escape, was sentenced 
for six years. 

There are some general topics connected with the Civil War 
worthy of attention. The entire number of soldiers enlisted by 
the national government was two million six hundred and eighty- 
eight thousand five hundred and twenty-three. As many of these 
served on more than one call and desertions were frequent, per- 
haps not more than one million five hundred thousand actually 
took the field. The Confederates had in active service probably 
six hundred thousand soldiers. Each side lost about three hun- 
dred thousand men, who were either killed in battle or who died 
of disease or wounds ; to which should be added at least two 
hundred thousand more who were crippled or enfeebled for life. 
The industries of the country, therefore, lost the services of one 
million able-bodied men by these four years of strife. 

The monetary cost of this struggle is partly shown by the 
war-debts on both sides. The Union debt, June, i860, was only 
about sixty-five million dollars ; January, 1866, it had reached two 
billion seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Add to this vast 
amount the bounties paid by the States, counties, cities, towns, 
and individuals; the pensions to the wounded; and the benefac- 
tions to soldiers' families, and the aggregate would exceed four 
billion dollars. The Confederate debt at the breaking up of its 
government was two billion dollars, which, of course, has never 
been paid. These immense sums leave untouched the vast waste 
and who.esale devastation incident to war — the desolated fields, 
the ruined towns and cities, and the demolished railroads. 

Various financial measures were adopted by the Federal 
authorities to meet the current expenses, which at one time 
reached three million five hundred thousand dollars per day. At 
first, fifty million dollars were advanced by the principal banks. 
Large subscriptions were made by wealthy persons. Additional 
duties were imposed on tea, coffee and other articles. Such was 
the derangement of the finances that, December 30, 1861, the 



598 LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1861-5. 

banks of New York suspended specie payments, an example which 
was generally followed. By successive acts, Congress authorized 
the issue of one hundred and fifty million dollars of paper money, 
familiarly known as "greenbacks." Silver and gold began to 
command a premium and to disappear from circulation. Postage 
stamps, ferry and omnibus tickets, and " shinplasters," issued by 
individuals or corporations, were used for small change. Con- 
gress hereupon authorized a fractional or postal currency, which 
soon came into common use. February 25, 1863, the act estab- 
lishing the national banking system was passed. Duties were 
greatly increased. Taxes were levied on incomes and manu- 
factures, and revenue stamps were ordered to be affixed to all 
notes, checks, bonds, mortgages, etc. The principal relief, how- 
ever, was obtained from the sale of United States bonds. The 
several issues of these are known as Seven-Thirties — the rate of 
interest being seven and thirty-hundredths per cent. ; Five-Twen- 
ties and Ten-Forties — the time of redemption of the former being 
fixed at not less than five nor more than twenty years, and of the 
latter, at not less than ten nor more than forty years. 

During the war, Humanity had its own victories. The San- 
itary and Christian Commissions performed a work of mercy 
unknown in the history of the world. Sanitary fairs were held in 
the chief towns and cities. Voluntary contributions were offered. 
Lint was picked. Garments were made and dainties prepared 
without stint. Every possible comfort was provided for the sick 
and the wounded. Loving hands toiled tirelessly, while the warm 
hearts which strengthened them stretched out to Southern battle- 
fields, and 

Enfolded in an atmosphere of prayer 

The dear, brave boys who fought and suffered there. 

The Christian Commission sent clergymen who visited the 
camps, prayed and talked with the soldiers, and, while they min- 
istered to their physical necessities, tried to lead them to a higher 
life. Agents of the Sanitary Commission were almost omnipresent. 
Wherever there was a camp or a picket station, and much more 
where a great battle impended, thither came these messengers of 
mercy, provided with every appliance that ingenuity could 
devise, love prepare, or money procure. They furnished ambu- 
lances, hospital cars and steamers, stretchers, nurses, canned 
fruits, medicines, bandages, clothing, hot coffee, postage stamps. 



1861-5.] SANITARY COMMISSIONS. 599 

paper and envelopes, reading matter, prayer-meetings, Christian 
burial — no want of body or soul was overlooked. The blue 
and the gray shared alike in these offices of mercy. Soldiers 
who had wandered from their regiments, or who had been dis- 
charged or were on sick leave, found Lodges ready to receive 
them. Troops en route to or from the seat of war, at every 
halting-place were fed with generous hospitality, and waited 
upon by the first ladies of the neighborhood. Wives and mothers 
who came to visit their friends in the army were welcomed to 
Homes with kindness and sympathy. The Sanitary Commission 
alone thus became the almoner of nearly twenty-five million dollars. 

The South, with its limited means, was less prodigal, but no 
less hearty in its generosity. The men were swept off by the 
relentless conscription law, but the women, left at home alone, 
devoted themselves to the struggle with that earnestness and 
ardor characteristic of the Southern race. (See Appendix.) 

Self-sacrifice to them was only adding privation to privation, 
yet they shrunk from nothing which might aid " The Cause." 
Already, from necessity, raspberry leaves — the old Revolutionary 
resource — shared with sassafras the honors of the tea-pot, while 
roasted grains and sweet-potato chips took the place of mocha. 
Sugar became an expensive luxury, and the once despised sor- 
ghum was made to do service in desserts and sweetmeats, which 
were eaten from the rare old family china with a heroic ignoring 
of the plebeian molasses " twang." Salt was a necessity for 
which there was no substitute. So carefully was it economized 
that even the barrels were soaked in which salt pork or fish had 
been packed, the water being afterward evaporated, that not a 
grain might be lost. Fashion became submissive, and at the gay 
" starvation parties," where no refreshments were served, beauti- 
ful women appeared in garments carded, woven, spun and dyed 
by their own fair hands. Gas was beyond the reach of most 
families, but light-wood knots, tallow candles, and, above all, the 
so-called " Confederate candle " supplied its place. The last- 
named substitute consisted of a long wick — the longer the better 
— drawn through a mixture of wax arid resin till it was thoroughly 
and smoothly coated, when it was wound on a little wooden frame 
which was called the " Confederate candlestick " ; the free end 
of the wick was passed through a bit of tin which was nailed on 
the upper part of the candlestick, and, on being lighted, was 
uncoiled as wanted. Large thorns with wax heads were made 



6oo 



LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



[1S61-5. 



to serve for hair-pins. Shoes were manufactured with wooden 
soles, to which the uppers were fastened by means of small tacks. 
The devices of the women for raising money to carry on the 
war were many and ingenious. Silver-plate and jewelry became 
free-will offerings, and the government published " monthly lists 
of contributions of rings, sugar-pots and spoons." One associa- 
tion advertised all through the South for broken kitchen-pots and 
pans, hoping thus to procure enough iron to build an armored 
steamer. It was even suggested by an ardent woman in Mobile 
that all the true feminine patriots should consent to be shorn, and 
a calculation was seriously made of the amount which might be 
realized in the European markets by the sale of so many heads of 
hair. Whatever opinion one may hold of the justice of the cause 
which lay so near the hearts of the Southern women, they can 
never be accused of lukewarmness or of lack of devotion to their 
principles. Their courage held good to the last; and when Lee 
surrendered, hundreds of delicate ladies were living on half 
rations, that they might share their few remaining comforts with 
his famishing men. 







THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE (DECADE OF (REC0J\ y ST(kUCTWJ\ 7 —i86 5 -i8 75 . 




ITHIN three hours after Lincoln 
expired, Andrew Johnson took the 
oath of office as the seventeenth 
President of the United States. 
Johnson was born in Raleigh, 
North Carolina, December 29, 
1808. When he was two years 
old, his father died, leaving the 
family in poverty. At the age ol 
ten, Andrew was apprenticed to a tailor. A gentleman often 
came into the shop and read to the workmen. The young boy, 
eagerly listening, became inspired with a desire to secure an edu- 
cation. All his leisure hours were thenceforth devoted to study. 
In 1826 he removed to Greenville, Tennessee, taking with him his 
mother. Here he married. Thus far he had learned only to read. 
His wife taught him to write and to cipher. He soon took a great 
interest in politics. Elected an alderman, he rose to be mayor 



604 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1865. 

member of the legislature, and representative in Congress, holding 
the last office for ten years. He was twice chosen governor. The 
canvass for his re-election was exciting. At one meeting Johnson 
appeared with a pistol in his hand, laid it on the desk, and said : 
" Fellow-citizens, I have been informed that part of the business to 
be transacted on the present occasion is the assassination of the in- 
dividual who has now the honor of addressing you. I beg respect- 
fully to propose that this be the first business in order. Therefore, 
if any man has come here to-night for the purpose indicated, I do 
not say to him, let him speak, but let him shoot." After pausing 
for a moment, with his hand on his pistol, he said : " Gentlemen, 
it appears that I have been misinformed. I will now proceed to 
address you on the subject that has called us together." When 
Tennessee passed the ordinance of secession, he remained stead- 
fast to the government. His loyal sentiments, his efforts to aid 
the Union refugees, and the persecution which he experienced at 
home, commended him to the North. In 1862, he was appointed 
military governor of Tennessee, in which position he upheld the 
Federal cause with great ability and zeal. 

Soon after his inauguration as President, in the course of a 
speech on the condition of the country, he declared : " The people 
must understand that treason is the blackest of crimes, and will 
be surely punished." Severe measures were consequently ex- 
pected, but his official acts soon dissipated the impression. 

The close of the war found at least one million five hundred 
thousand men under arms. The opening of the new era was 
marked by the disbanding of this vast armament. A grand re- 
view of the armies of Grant and Sherman, two hundred thousand 
strong, took place in the presence of the President and his cabinet. 
For twelve hours this triumphal procession, thirty miles long, 
massed in solid column twenty men deep, rolled through the 
broad avenues of the capital. With no disturbance, no excite- 
ment, the men laid down their arms and returned to their homes. 
Soon there was nothing to distinguish the soldier from the citi- 
zen, except the recollection of his bravery. Never had the world 
seen such a triumph of democratic institutions. 

Now came the task of reconstruction. It presented more dif- 
ficult problems than the war itself. Johnson took the position 
that a State could not secede, and therefore none of the Southern 
States had ever been really out of the Union. Having laid down 
their arms, it was only necessary for them to submit to the na- 



1865.] 



JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



605 



tional authority to be in all 
respects as they were be- 
fore the war. He recog- 
nized the State govern- 
ments that had been formed 
in Virginia, Tennessee, Ar- 
kansas and Louisiana under 
the protection of the Fed- 
eral army. In the others, 
he appointed provisional 
governors, and authorized 
the calling of conventions 
to establish loyal govern- 
ments. 

The conventions, which 
were accordingly held, re- 
pealed the ordinances of 
secession, repudiated the 
Con fe derate war debt, 
and ratified the thirteenth 
amendment. April 29th, 
the President removed re- 
strictions on trade with the 
South, and a month later 
he issued a proclamation of 
amnesty to all who would 
take the oath of allegiance 
to the United States. A 
few classes of individuals 
were excluded, but many 
persons thus debarred were 
pardoned on special appli- 
cation to the President. 

The thirteenth amend- 
ment abolishing slavery 
having been ratified by the 
legislatures of twenty-sev- 
en States, on the 18th of 
December it was declared 
to be a part of the Consti- 
tution of the United States. 



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606 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1865-8. 

Congress, on assembling in the fall, took strong ground against 
the reconstruction policy of the President. It claimed that the 
seceded States were really out of the Union, and Congress alone 
had the power to prescribe to them the terms of re-admission. A 
committee of fifteen was appointed, to which were referred all 
questions concerning the reorganization of the States. Several 
important acts were passed over Johnson's veto. January 25, 1866, 
enlarged powers were granted to the Freedmen's Bureau — a de- 
partment of the government which had the care of the emancipated 
blacks and the destitute whites of the South. The Civil Rights 
bill was enacted April 9th, guaranteeing to the negroes the privi- 
leges of citizenship. The Tenure-of-office bill, passed March 2, 
1867, provided that, contrary to the decision reached by the first 
Congress (see page 336), no removal from office should be made 
by the President without the consent of the Senate. The same 
day the South was divided into five districts and placed under 
military governors. By a subsequent enactment, the commanders 
were made amenable only to the general of the army. 

Meanwhile, Congress had declared that, as an additional guar- 
anty, another amendment to the Constitution should be adopted. 
This provided (i)that equal civil rights should be conceded to all, 
regardless of race or color ; (2) that where the right of suffrage 
was denied to any portion of the citizens of a State, the basis of 
representation should be correspondingly reduced ; (3) that no 
person should hold any office under the national or State govern- 
ments who had violated his oath of allegiance to the United States 
by engaging in secession ; (4) that the national debt should be 
held inviolate ; (5) that the Confederate war debt should be void ; 
and (6) that no compensation should be given for emancipated 
slaves. This was incorporated in the Constitution July 28, 1868. 

The effect of these various congressional measures was largely 
to exclude from office the better class of the Southern people, and 
to throw the political power into the hands of an ignorant popula- 
tion, and of Northern men who had gone South after the war. The 
latter were, in too many cases, mere adventurers — " carpet-bag- 
gers," as they were styled — who had been drawn hither by the 
hope of position and of plunder. 

Tennessee having ratified the fourteenth amendment, in July, 
1866, it was restored to the Union. The military governors in the 
other States made a registry of votes, and held elections for con- 
ventions to remodel their constitutions, in accordance with the 



1866-8.] 



JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



607 



provisions of Congress. After a protracted struggle, Arkansas, 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and North and South 
Carolina were reconstructed, and their senators and representa- 
tives admitted to the councils of the nation, June 24, 1868. 

In the fall of 1866, Johnson, with a brilliant party, made a tour 
from Washington to Chicago, to be present at the laying of the 
corner-stone of a monument to Stephen A. Douglas. At all the 
principal places, the President addressed the assembled multitude 
on the political issues. An expression which he used several times 
gave rise to the popular phrase, " Swinging round the circle." 

The feeling between the executive and the legislative branch 
of the government at last came to an issue. In August, 1867, the 
President notified Mr. Stanton, the 
Secretary of War, of his suspension 
from office and the appointment of 
General Grant ad interim. The 
Secretary vacated his post under 
protest, considering the removal a 
violation of the Tenure-of-office bill. 
When Congress assembled, it re- 
fused to sanction the President's 
act, whereupon General Grant re- 
signed his office to Secretary Stan- 
ton. In February, 1868, the Presi- 
dent again informed the Secretary 
of his removal and the appointment 
of General Thomas to the vacancy. 
The Senate resolved that the Pres- 
sident had no power to remove the Secretary of War and desig- 
nate any other person to perform the duties of that office. 

February 24th, the House agreed to impeach the President of 
" high crimes and misdemeanors." The trial began March 23d, 
the Senate being organized as a court, with Chief-Justice Chase 
presiding. Messrs. Bingham, Butler, Boutwell, Logan, Stevens, 
Williams and Wilson of the House were the managers of the 
prosecution ; and Messrs. Curtis, Evarts, Groesbeck, Nelson and 
Stanbery were the counsel for the President. The decision was 
taken May 26th, when thirty-five Senators answered "guilty," and 
nineteen, " not guilty." As a two-thirds vote was necessary for 
conviction, the President was sustained. Stanton immediately 
resigned his post, and General Schofield succeeded him. 




ANDREW JOHNSON. 



608 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1862-6. 

Or July 4, 1868 the ninety-second anniversary of the national 
birthday, a pardon was proclaimed to all engaged in the late war, 
except those already indicted for treason or other felony. On 
Christmas of the same year — a day most fitting for acts of good- 
will and mercy to erring brethren — a universal amnesty was 
declared. 

Though the nation was still agitated by political strife — the 
ground-swell, as it were, of the recent terrible storm — „„e coun- 
try was rapidly taking on the appearance and ways of peace. 
The South was slowly adjusting herself to the novel conditions 
of free labor. The soldiers retained somewhat their martial air ; 
but " blue-coats " and " gray-coats " were everywhere to be seen 
engaged in quiet avocations. The ravages of war were fast dis- 
appearing. Nature had already sown grass and quick-growing 
plants upon the battle-fields where contending armies had strug- 
gled. 

"There were domes of white blossoms where swelled the white tent; 
There were plows in the track where the war-wagons went ; 
There were songs where they lifted up Rachel's lament." 

Strangely symbolical of the new era of growth which had 
dawned on the nation, a wanderer over the cannon-plowed slope 
of Cemetery Ridge found a broken drum, in which a swarm of 
bees were building their comb and storing honey gathered from 
the flowers growing on that soil so rich with Union and Confed- 
erate blood. 

The annual interest on the debt was about one hundred and 
thirty million dollars ; but the revenue from duties on imported 
goods, from taxes on manufactures, incomes, etc., and from the 
sale of revenue stamps, was over three hundred nvllion dollars. 
Hence this provided not only for the current expenses of the 
government and the payment of interest, but also for the gradual 
extinguishment of the debt. It is a striking evidence of the 
abundant resources of the country that, in 1866, "before all the 
extra troops called out by the war had been discharged, the 
national indebtedness had been diminished more than thirty-one 
million dollars." 

While the United States was absorbed in the Civil War, 
Napoleon III. took advantage of the opportunity to attempt to 
secure a foothold on this continent. In 1862, France, England 
and Spain sent an expedition into Mexico to obtain redress for 
injuries suffered by foreign residents in that country, and also to 



1865-7.] JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. fKtq 

induce the people to elect a ruler and put an end to tne anarchy 
which had so long distracted the nation. Difficulties arose, ar.d 
the Spaniards and the English abandoned the enterprise. The 
French thereupon advanced inland, and after many reverses, suc- 
ceeded in taking the city of Mexico. Refusing to treat with the 
liberal government under Juarez, the French commander called 
an assembly, which decided that Mexico should be an empire, and 
tendered the throne to Archduke Maximilian of Austria. He 
accepted on certain conditions, one of which was that the call 
should be a spontaneous expression of the whole nation. After 
his accession, the new emperor found that he had been deceived, 
and that the republican feeling was still strong. The United 
States government, now freed from its domestic difficulty, was 
ready to assert the Monroe doctrine, and accordingly demanded 
that the French troops should be withdrawn from this continent. 
Maximilian, abandoned by his allies, was unable to maintain his 
authority against Juarez. He was captured, tried by court-mar- 
tial, and executed, June 19, 1867. With him fell the Mexican 
empire and the dream of French dominion in the West. 

During these grand political movements, science had achieved 
a peaceful triumph whose importance far transcended the victo- 
ries of diplomatic or military skill. As early as 1853, Cyrus W. 
Field of New York had conceived the idea of an ocean telegraph. 
An association was organized the next year, and in 1856, a line 
was finished from New York to St. John's, Newfoundland, a dis- 
tance of over one thousand miles. A company was then formed, 
with a capital of about one million seven hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, to carry the wire across the ocean. A cable was made, 
but it parted while being laid, August, 1857. A second attempt, 
in June, 1858, failed after repeated trials. A third effort in July 
of the same year was successful. A message was sent from the 
Queen of England to the President of the United States, and a 
reply transmitted. But the wire worked for only a few weeks 
and then became silent. The time and money spent seemed a 
total loss. Mr. Field alone was hopeful. Through his efforts 
the company was revived, three million dollars were subscribed, 
and a new cable was manufactured. Meanwhile, seven years 
had elapsed since the first failure. In July, 1865, the Great East- 
ern commenced laying the cable, but in mid-ocean it parLed and 
sunk to the bottom. 

Again Mr. Field went to work, raised a new company, with a 
39 



6io 



THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. 



[1866. 



capital of three million dollars, and made a third cable. The 
Great Eastern sailed with this, June, 1866, and successfullv 
accomplished its task ; the first message transmitted being, "A 
treaty of peace has been signed between Austria and Prussia." 
To make the triumph more complete, the vessel went back, found 
the very spot in the broad ocean where the cable of 1865 had 
parted, and, dropping her huge grappling-irons down two miles 
into the sea, caught the lost cable, brought it to the surface, and, 
splicing it, laid the remaining portion. The two cables were 




THE GREAT EASTERN IN MID-OCEAN LAYING THE CABLE. 

found to work admirably. So perfect is the connection and so 
delicate the instruments used, that a despatch has been sent from 
Valentia Bay, Ireland, to Heart's Content, Newfoundland, a dis- 
tance of eighteen hundred and sixty-four miles, by a battery made 
in a gun-cap. Field had spent twelve years of anxious labor, 
during which he had crossed the Atlantic nearly fifty times ; but 
American energy and ingenuity triumphed at last. 

In 1866, the movements of the Fenians, a society formed for 
the avowed purpose of delivering Ireland from the English rule, 
caused great apprehension in Canada. Large amounts of money 
were subscribed by the Irishmen in this country, and extensive 
military organizations perfected. June 1st, fifteen hundred men 
crossed the frontier from Buffalo, but they were quickly driven 
back. Seven hundred fugitives were captured by a United States 



1868.] JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 6ll 

gun-boat. General Barry paroled large numbers of the privates 
and released the officers on bail. The main body of the so-called 
" Fenian army" advanced a little later from St. Albans, Vermont, 
but, after some skirmishing with the British troops, returned 
across the line. The United States authorities sent home the 
men at government expense and held the officers to bail. 

The 4th of July, this year, was marked by a destructive con- 
flagration at Portland, Maine, caused by a fire-cracker. Nearly 
one-third of the city was consumed, the loss being ten million 
dollars. 

The year 1867 was signalized by the purchase of Alaska from 
Russia for the sum of seven million two hundred thousand dollars. 
The territory comprises five hundred and eighty thousand square 
miles and twenty -nine thousand inhabitants. It is chiefly valuable 
for its fisheries, furs and lumber. 

During Lincoln's administration, but one State, the thirty- 
sixth, was received into the Union. This was Nevada, so named 
from a range of mountains on its eastern border, the Sierra- 
Nevada, signifying " snow-covered mountains." It was the third 
State carved out of the territory acquired by the Mexican war ; 
Texas being the first and Colorado the second. During Johnson's 
administration, also, one State, the thirty-seventh, was admitted, 
March 1, 1867. This was Nebraska, so named from an Indian term 
meaning the " water-valley." 

The " National Union Republicans " held a convention at 
Chicago, May 21, 1868. There were six hundred and fifty dele- 
gates present, all of whom, on the first ballot, cast their votes for 
Ulysses S. Grant as their candidate for the presidency. Schuyler 
Colfax of Indiana was then nominated for the vice-presidency. 

The National Democratic convention at New York, July 4th, 
put in the field Horatio Seymour of New York for the presidency, 
and Frank P. Blair of Missouri for the vice-presidency. 

The election resulted in the choice of the Republican candi- 
dates, Grant and Colfax receiving two hundred and seventeen 
electoral votes ; Seymour and Blair, seventy-seven. In the pop- 
ular vote there was not so great a difference, as the former candi- 
dates received two million nine hundred and eighty-five thousand 
and thirty-one ; and the latter, two million six hundred and forty- 
eight thousand eight hundred and thirty. Mississippi, Texas and 
Virginia did not take part in this election. 

Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated eighteenth President of the 



6l2 



THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. 



[1869. 




GENERAL GRANT'S RESIDENCE AT GALENA, ILL. (l86o). 



United States, March 4, 1869. Grant was born of Scotch parentage 
at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822. His name was Hiram 
Ulysses, but on being appointed to West Point in 1839, ne was 

registered as Ulysses 



S., and so remained. 
He graduated twenty- 
first in a class of thirty- 
nine, and became a sec- 
ond lieutenant in the 
army. For gallantry 
at Molino del Rey, he 
was promoted to a 
first lieutenancy, and 
at Chapultepec he was 
brevetted captain. In 
1854, he resigned his 
commission, and when 
the war broke out, 
he was engaged with his father in the leather trade at Galena, 
Illinois. He raised a company of volunteers, and finally took the 
field as colonel of the Twenty-first regiment. Soon after, his 
history became a part of the general record of the war. 

President Grant chose for his official advisers : Elihu B. 
Washburne of Illinois, Secretary of State; Alexander T. Stewart 
of New York, Secretary of the Treasury ; General J. M. Schofield 
of the United States Army, Secretary of War ; Adolph E. Borie 
of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Navy ; Jacob D. Cox of Ohio, 
Secretary of the Interior; John A. J. Creswell of Maryland, 
Postmaster-General ; and E. Rockwood Hoar of Massachusetts, 
Attorney-General. Mr. Washburne resigning soon after, Hamil- 
ton Fish of New York was appointed in his stead. A law, passed 
near the close of the eighteenth century, forbids any person 
engaged in trade or commerce to serve as Secretary ot the 
Treasury. Mr. Stewart being a merchant, was accordingly ineli- 
gible to the place, and George S. Bout well of Massachusetts was 
selected. General Schofield wishing to return to the army, John 
A. Rawlins of Illinois was appointed to fill the vacancy. 

This year was made memorable in our history by the com- 
pletion of the Central Pacific Railroad. The project was first 
advocated by Asa Whitney, who spoke upon the subject as 
early as 1846. Surveys to decide upon the best route were made 



1869.] 



GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION. 



613 



by the authority of the War Department in 1853. Nothing, how- 
ever, was accomplished until July, 1862, and 1864, when Congress 
granted to the companies undertaking the work of building the 
road, for each mile they should complete, twelve thousand acres of 
land and a subsidy, varying, according to the difficulties encoun- 
tered, from sixteen thousand to forty-eight thousand dollars. The 
road was extended eastward from California by the Central Pa- 
cific Company, and from the Missouri River westward by the 
Union Pacific Company. The work was performed with great 
rapidity, the track being laid at the rate of two or three miles 
per day. 

The last tie connecting the two lines was laid with much cere- 
mony at Ogden, May 10, 1869. It was of polished laurel-wood 







^m^T^^m^ 



DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE. 



bound with silver-bands. Three spikes were used — a gold one, 
presented by California; a silver one, by Nevada; and a gold, 
silver and iron one, by Arizona. The strokes of the hammer were 
telegraphed over the Union. When the junction was complete, 
an invoice of tea was immediately shipped over the road from San 
Francisco, and the telegraph announced that the " overland trade 



614 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1870. 

with China and Japan was inaugurated. The entire length of the 
road from Omaha to San Francisco is nineteen hundred and 
eleven miles, and from New York, about three thousand four 
hundred miles. Cars run the whole distance in less than a week. 

September 24th, 1869, is famous in business circles as " Black 
Friday." An association known as the "Gold Exchange" had 
planned to get control of all the gold in circulation. At the date 
named it had succeeded in raising the price from 1.38 to 1.60. 
That difference meant the financial ruin of multitudes. At this 
crisis it was announced that the Secretary of the Treasury would 
sell four million dollars in gold the ensuing day. The stringency 
of the market was at once relaxed, and gold dropped back to 1.32. 

November 12th of this year is a notable date in the ecclesi- 
astical history of this country. The two schools of the Presby- 
terian Church had been separated, on account of some doctrinal 
differences, since 1837. Representatives of the two bodies having 
convened at Pittsburg decided upon a reunion ; and on that day 
their Moderators grasped each other's hands in token thereof, 
amid indescribable enthusiasm. 

The Fifteenth Amendment, which guarantees to all the right 
of suffrage, irrespective of " race, color, or previous condition of 
servitude," was formally announced to be a part of the Constitu- 
tion, March 30, 1870. 

Early in 1870, the representatives of the three remaining South- 
ern States took their seats in Congress ; Texas being the last to 
resume her former place. 

The ninth census of the United States was completed this year. 
The inhabitants then numbered over thirty-eight millions, an in- 
crease of seven millions during the previous decade. The centre 
of population in 1840 was just south of Clarksburg, West Virginia; 
in 1850, a little south-east of Parkersburg, West Virginia ; in i860, 
south of Chillicothe, Ohio; and in 1870, near Hillsboro, Ohio. 
During the last three decades the tide of population had set west 
ward at the rate of 5.5, 8.2, and 4.6 miles per annum respectively. 
In 1840, half of the people of the United States lived east cf a line 
drawn from Oswego to Appalachee Bay; in 1870, the dividing 
line ran from Cleveland, Ohio, a little west of Rome, Georgia. 

The Republic of Santo Domingo, on the island of Hayti, seemed 
anxious to be annexed to the United States. President Grant 
strongly favored the plan. He accordingly appointed Senator 
Wade of Ohio, President White of Cornell University, and Dr. 



1871.] grant's administration. 615 

Howe of Massachusetts, as a Board of Commissioners to visit the 
island. They reported favorably, but the measure was rejected 
by Congress. 

There was at this time in New York a combination familiarly 
known as " The Ring," which controlled public affairs. William 
M. Tweed stood at its head. By forging bills or by fraudulent 
accounts it had abstracted millions of dollars from the treasury. 
A committee of prominent men was formed, which broke up the 
conspiracy. Tweed was arrested, tried, and imprisoned, but 
he escaped in December, 1875. Several of his companions had 
previously fled the country. 

Our government had constantly pressed upon the attention of 
the English authorities a claim for the damages caused to Amer- 
ican commerce by the Anglo-Confederate cruisers. A joint high- 
commission, consisting of five eminent statesmen and jurists from 
each country accordingly assembled at Washington, February 27, 
1 87 1. They arranged the basis of the Treaty of Washington, pro- 
viding that the claim for losses should be submitted to a board of 
arbitration appointed by the President of the United States and 
by friendly powers. This body met at Geneva, Switzerland, in 
the summer of 1872. Sixteen million two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars were awarded to the United States. 

On the eve of October 8, 1871, a fire broke out in Chicago, 
which proved the most disastrous conflagration since the burning 
of Moscow in 1812. The flames, driven by a high wind, swept 
over the neighboring lumber-yards, leaped the South Branch of 
the river, and spread through the business part of the city. All 
efforts to check it were fruitless. Fire-proof buildings burned 
like tinder. The conflagration raged for three days, when it died 
out for lack of fuel. A territory a mile wide and four and a half 
miles long had been swept barren by the fiery deluge ; two hun- 
dred persons had been killed, one hundred thousand persons left 
homeless, and two hundred million dollars worth of property con- 
sumed. As the tidings of this terrible disaster were telegraphed 
over the world, meetings were called and contributions to the 
amount of seven million dollars were made for the relief of the 
sufferers. Never was there such a display of charity ; it was only 
paralleled by the energy of the citizens themselves. Within a year 
the. burnt district was nearly all rebuilt, and within two years the 
business part of the city was larger than ever. 

A curious incident is recorded in connection with this fire. A 



6l6 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1S72. 

news establishment containing an immense stock of books and 
periodicals was consumed. Among the blackened ruins there was 
found a single leaf of a Bible charred around the edges. It con- 
tained the first chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, opening 
with the words : "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of 
people ! how is she become as a widow ! she that was great among 
the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become 
tributary ! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on 
her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her." 

About the same time of this disaster, extensive conflagrations 
raged in the forests of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. 
Entire villages were consumed, and in Wisconsin alone, fifteen 
hundred people perished. 

On the 9th of November, 1872, Boston was also visited by a 
fire, that destroyed the very heart of its wholesale trade, causing 
a loss of seventy-five million dollars. Nearly eight hundred 
buildings were consumed, many of them of granite, and four or 
five stories high. 

During the last session of the Forty-second Congress, the 
salary of the President was doubled ; the pay of the Vice-Presi- 
dent, Speaker of the House, Justices of the Supreme Court, and 
Heads of the Departments was increased twenty-five per cent. ; 
and that of Congressmen was raised to seven thousand five 
hundred dollars. As the action was made, in part, retroactive, a 
popular outcry was raised, and the terms " salary grab " and 
" back pay " became incorporated into the political as well as 
social vocabulary of the country. 

The Liberal Republicans, i. c, the members of that party who 
were opposed to the policy of the administration, met at Cincin- 
nati, May 1, 1872. They nominated Horace Greeley for Presi- 
dent, and B. Gratz Brown of Missouri, for Vice-President. The 
Democratic convention at Baltimore afterward endorsed their 
selection. The Republican partv renominated General Grant by 
acclamation, choosing Henry Wilson of Massachusetts for the 
vice-presidency. The campaign was heated and bitter. The. 
question of the reconstruction of the South and all the issues of 
the late war were discussed, oftentimes with virulence. The 
Republican candidates were elected. They received two hun- 
dred and sixty-eight votes in the electoral college, against eighty 
for the others, and had a popular majority of seven hundred and 
Sixty-two thousand nir\2 hundred and ninety-one, 



1873.] 



GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION. 



.17 




The sad fate of Horace Greeley cast a gloom over the whole 
country. The desertion of his life-long friends, the excitement of 
the presidential canvass, and the death of his wife combined to 
weaken both his mind and body. He died at a private asylum, 
November 29th. Forty- 
one years before, he came 
to New York a young man 
of twenty, He had only 
ten dollars in his pocket, 
but he possessed energy, 
will, and a good trade. 
Step by step, he rose from 
the compositor's desk to an 
acknowledged leadership in 
journalism. In our history, 
he is known as the" Founder 
of the New York Tribune." 

General Grant a second 
time took the oath of office 
as President of the United 
States, March 4, 1873. An 
anecdote told concerning 

the inauguration of Mr. Wilson as Vice-President, is character- 
istic of the man and the republic. " The evening before the 
ceremony, he called on Senator Sumner and said, ' Sumner, can 
you lend me a hundred dollars? I have not money enough to 
be inaugurated upon." The Senator replied, ' Certainly. If it 
had been a large sum, I might not have been able to help you ; 
but I can always lend a friend that amount.' He then gave Mr. 
Wilson a check, and after the latter had retired, turning to Mr. 
Carpenter, he remarked, ' There is an incident worth remember- 
ing ; such a one as could never have occurred in any country but 
our own.' " 

The cabinet, as first organized, was as follows ; Hamilton Fish 
of New York, Secretary of State ; William A. Richardson of 
Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury ; William W. Belknap 
of Iowa, Secretary of War ; George M. Robeson of New Jersey, 
Secretary of the Navy ; Columbus Delano of Iowa, Secretary of 
the Interior ; George H. Williams of Oregon, Attorney-General ; 
and John A. J. Creswell of Maryland, Postmaster-General. Sev- 
eral changes by death or resignation afterward occurred, and the 



HORACE GREELEY. 



6l8 THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. [1873. 

following new appointments were made ; Benjamin H. Bristow 
of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury ; Zachariah Chandler of 
Michigan, Secretary of the Interior; Edwards Pierrepont of New 
York, Attorney-General; and Marshall Jewell of Connecticut, 
Postmaster-General. 

The proper method of treating the Indians was a mooted 
question throughout the decade. The Society of Friends having 
suggested to Congress the wisdom of using charity instead of 
gunpowder, a committee of Quakers was appointed to visit the 
various tribes and make a practical trial of the effect of kindness. 
The result was favorable, but the influence was necessarily limited. 
There were continued difficulties with the red men along the 
entire frontier. In every case, the military power was used to 
enforce submission. 

In 1865-6, the Sioux and Cheyennes took the war-path, and 
perpetrated horrible massacres. Sheridan and Custer were sent 
against them, and the victory of Wacheta put an end to the dis- 
turbance. In 1870, a tribe of the Blackfeet Indians in Montana 
renewed the horrors of the Old French and Indian War. Troops 
were called out. The Indian villages were burned, and men, 
women and children put to the sword. The remnant sued for 
peace. Three years later, Captain Jack's band of Modocs in Ore- 
gon left its reservation and refused to return. Troops were sent 
to enforce submission. The Modocs retreated to the Lava Beds, 
which formed a natural fortification. Commissioners were sent to 
learn their grievance, but during a peaceful conference, the 
Indians brutally murdered General Canby and Rev. Dr. Thomas, 
and stabbed Mr. Meachem. The Modocs were soon after be- 
sieged in their stronghold and forced to surrender. The leaders 
were tried by military commission and executed at Fort Kla- 
math, October 3, 1873. 

The company formed for the purpose of constructing the 
Pacific Railroad purchased the charter of an organization known 
as the Credit Mobilier of America. The stock was increased to 
three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars; enormous 
dividends were declared, and the shares rapidly rose in value. 
In 1872, during a law-suit tried in Pennsylvania, the startling fact 
was developed that several members of Congress, the Vice-Presi- 
dent and one of the candidates for that office had accepted, even 
if they did not then own, stock in the Credit Mobilier. The 
nation was greatly scandalized by the thought of its official ser- 



1875.] grant's administration. 619 

vants being thus pecuniarily interested in a corporation whose 
profits were so largely dependent on their votes. Subsequent 
investigation disclosed cases of corruption which shocked the 
public confidence. 

The panics of 1837 and of 1857 were repeated in 1873. As 
Jackson's " Specie Circular " and the failure of the " Life and 
Trust Company " of Cincinnati were, in the former instances, 
the signals for a financial crash, so in this, the failure of the 
banking-house of Jay Cooke and Company, Philadelphia, began 
the panic. Money took the alarm and fled to its hiding-places. 
Innumerable failures ensued. Confidence was destroyed. Values 
shrank. Great railroad enterprises were stopped. The causes 
of the crash were numerous. Among the principal ones may be 
recorded : an excessive importation of foreign goods, necessitating 
an exportation of gold and silver in payment ; the building of 
railroads beyond the immediate wants of the country ; the grow- 
ing extravagance of the people ; and the contraction of the national 
currency from six hundred and ninety-nine million dollars in 
1865, to three hundred and forty-seven million dollars in 1873. 

The idea of the benefits of association among those having 
a similar pursuit was unusually prevalent during the decade. 
Prominent among the organizations formed on this basis is the 
one known as the Patrons of Industry. The first grange of this 
order was located at Fredonia, New York, April 16, 1868. At the 
recent national meeting at Charleston, there were reported to be 
in the United States twenty-four thousand granges, having a 
membership of one million seven hundred and fifty thousand. 
The objects of the order are various, but among them are the 
following : to dispense with the services of middlemen ; to bring 
producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers, in direct 
communication ; to buy and sell together ; to elevate the social 
standing of the farmer ; and to improve agriculture. 

March 3, 1875, an act was passed admitting Colorado, the 
thirty-eighth State. Though the last to be admitted into the 
Union, its territory was among the earliest to be discovered, 
Vasquez Coronado having led a Spanish expedition from Mexico 
to explore it in 1 1,40. 

The latter portion of the decade was marked by the death 
of many men who have borne a distinguished part in our his- 
tory. The following is a list of the most prominent: In 1869, 
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War under President Lincoln 



620 



THE DECADE OF RECONSTRUCTION. 



[187C. 



and afterward Justice of the Supreme Court, and Franklin Pierce, 
ex-President of the United States. In 1870, General Robert E. 
Lee, General George H. Thomas, and Admiral Farragut. In 
1872, William H. Seward, Horace Greeley, General Meade, and 
Professor Morse. In 1873, Chief-Justice Chase, and in 1874, 
Charles Sumner. In 1875, John C. Breckenridge, Vice-Presi- 
dent under Buchanan ; ex-President Johnson, and Henry Wilson, 
then Vice-President. The century closes with no President liv- 
ing except its present incumbent, and no Vice-Presidents except 
Hannibal Hamlin, who held that office during Lincoln's first 
administration, and Schuyler Colfax, who held it during the first 
administration of General Grant. 

We have now traced the story of our Independence to the 
close of its first century. Already, as we have reached the an- 
niversary of the stirring events which preceded the Declaration 
in 1776, there have been imposing observances. The popular 
pulse has beaten with the fervor of patriotism as crowds have 
gathered to celebrate the Boston Tea Party, the Mecklenburg 
Declaration, and the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker 
Hill. Everywhere there has been manifested a desire to recog- 
nize the kind Providence which has so abundantly prospered the 
nation ; to gather the rich fruitage from the experience of the 
past ; to draw closer the bands of national fellowship ; to cherish 
the recollections of the fields whereon our forefathers, North and 
South, fought side by side to achieve a common Independence; 
and to learn from the conflicts wherein we, their sons, have met 
face to face, lessons of mutual respect and forbearance. 




CENTENNIAL MEDAL — REVERSE. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CENTENNIAL <D ECA(bE— ifrj6-i886. 

THE arrival of the Centennial Year of the Republic was 
hailed with acclamations of delight that were continued 
with unabated fervor by the whole nation from midnight on 
Friday, December 31, 1875, until daybreak. In cities, villages, 
and hamlets everywhere, guns were fired, bells rung, bonfires lit, 
public buildings and private residences illuminated, and rockets 
sent into the air. Troops of men went singing patriotic songs 
through the streets that, as the night was unusually mild, were 
crowded as though it were broad daylight. All through the year 
1876 the jubilant feeling continued, and the national holidays and 
anniversaries, especially the Fourth of July, were celebrated with 
great enthusiasm. The International Exhibition, the second one 
of the kind in the country, was held in Philadelphia. The centen- 
nial bill authorizing it and the necessary bonds were signed by 
President Grant with a quill from the wing of an American eagle, 
shot near Mount Hope, Oregon. Thirty-eight foreign govern- 
ments were represented in the Exhibition. It was formally opened 
May 10, and closed on November 10. The number of exhib- 
itors surpassed that of any previous World's Fair, excepting the 
one in Paris in 1867, and the number of admissions and the 
receipts therefrom were larger than those of any similar exhibi- 
tion held up to that time. So far as money was concerned, the 
undertaking did not prove a profitable one, but the influence on 
the education and various industries of the country was marked 
and valuable. 

In the early part of the year, Secretary Belknap was accused 
of fraud and peculation in the disposition of Indian Post trader- 
ships. He tendered his resignation on March 3, and it was 
accepted by the President. Alfonso Taft of Ohio was appointed 
to fill his place in the cabinet. Subsequently, by the appointment 
of Edwards Pierrepont to be Minister to England, Mr. Taft sue- 



622 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [1876. 

ceeded him as Attorney General, and J. Donald Cameron of 
Pennsylvania was made Secretary of War. Other cabinet 
changes occurred during the year. Benjamin H. Bristow 
resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury, and was suc- 
ceeded by Senator Lot M. Morrill of Maine, and James N. Tyner 
of Indiana succeeded Marshall Jewell at the head of the Post 
Office Department. 

Notwithstanding Secretary Belknap's resignation, Congress 
decided that it had jurisdiction of the case, and accordingly 
articles of impeachment were formally presented against him. 
His trial was begun before the Senate on April 17, and continued 
from time to time until August I, when two-thirds of that 
body not voting to sustain the articles, it was ordered that an 
acquittal be entered. In the meantime he had been indicted 
before the courts, but the action of the Senate put a stop to all 
further proceedings. 

The country was much agitated at this time by the discovery 
of great frauds perpetrated in the revenue department at St. 
Louis, Chicago, Milwaukie, Louisville, and other midland cities, 
by what was termed the " whisky ring." Many officers confessed 
or were convicted, and sentenced to fines and imprisonment. 
President Grant, in writing to the Attorney General with regard 
to the prosecution of the offenders, used the words so much 
quoted : " Let no guilty one escape." 

The election of a President took place this year. On May i8 t 
the " Greenbackers " held their first national convention in 
Indianapolis, Indiana. This organization, first heard of in 1868, 
took its name from the leading article of its political faith — that 
the government should issue paper money similar to that issued 
during the war, popularly called, from its color, " greenback cur- 
rency," based on the credit of the country, without regard to 
coin ; and with it, should buy up the bonds. This party nomi- 
nated for President, the venerable philanthropist Peter Cooper 
of New York, and for Vice-President, Samuel F. Cary of Ohio. 
The republicans met in Cincinnati, on June 16, and put in nomina- 
tion for President, Governor Rutherford B, Hayes of Ohio, and 
for Vice-President, William A. Wheeler of New York. The 
democrats met in St. Louis on June 27, and nominated for Presi- 
dent, Samuel J. Tilden of New York, and for Vice-President, 
Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. 

The connection of General Robert C. Schenck of Ohio, Min- 



1876.] 



GRANT S ADMINISTRATION. 



623 






ister to England, with a silver-mining company that was alleged 
to have been a fraudulent speculation, attracted a great deal of 
attention. General Schenck had served with some distinction in 
the war, and his position as minister gave him the confidence of 
the English people. They were induced to subscribe liberally to 
the stock of the mining company, and eventually lost their invest- 
ments. General Schenck was compelled to resign (February 8). 
On May 25 following, the Senate passed a resolution condemning 
him for becoming a director in the mining company, and for his 
operations in connection therewith in London. 

The Indians in the Territories 
continuing to be troublesome, 
Generals Terry and Custer were 
sent to subdue them. The troops 
were operating in Montana, when 
General Custer was detached to 
follow the trail of a hostile band 
of Sioux. June 25, he came sud- 
denly upon a large force on the 
Little Big Horn River. Without 
waiting for support, he attacked 
them. His little command was 
overpowered after a desperate 
resistance. He, with his two 
brothers and a nephew, were 
killed. Our loss was two hundred and sixty-one killed, and 
fifty-one wounded ; while that of the Indians was only seventy 
in all. Troubles with the Cheyennes, Utes, Nez Perces, Sioux, 
and Pawnee tribes continued almost constantly through this 
decade. 

The Presidential election was attended with more than the usual 
excitement, on account of the closeness of the vote, and the uncer- 
tainty of the result. The usual method of counting the electoral vote 
was not considered the proper one to follow on this occasion, there 
being so many disputed returns. An Act was accordingly passed, 
prepared by a committee of seven members Irom each House of 
Congress, the committee being made up of an equal number 
from each political party, providing that the two Houses should 
meet in the Hall of the Representatives, and where there was 
more than one return from a State, a commission of fifteen mem- 
bers should decide which was the true and lawful one. This 




GROUP OP SIOUX INDIANS. 



624 



THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. 



[1877. 



commission was composed of five from each House of Congress, 
and five associate justices of the U. S. Supreme Court, the asso- 
ciate judge longest in commission being the presiding officer. 
The joint convention of Congress to count the electoral vote 
began its sessions on February 1, 1877, and concluded on March 2. 
Questions arose as to the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, 
Nevada, and Oregon. The commission, by a vote of eight to 
seven, decided them all in favor of the republican candidates, who 
were thereby declared elected, receiving one hundred and eighty- 
five electoral votes to one hundred and eighty-four cast for the 
democratic candidates. 

The Forty-fourth Congress adjourned on March 5, the House 

of Representatives having 
passed a resolution declaring 
that Tilden and Hendricks 
had been elected. 

Rutherford Birchard 
Hayes, the nineteenth Presi- 
dent of the United States, 
was born in Delaware, Ohio, 
on October 4, 1822, his par- 
ents having emigrated from 
Vermont in 181 7. He was 
graduated at Kenyon Col- 
lege in Ohio, being the vale- 
dictorian of his class ; passed 
through the Harvard Law 
School, and was admitted to 
practice at the bar in 1845. 
He was married in 1852. In 
1858 he was solicitor of the city of Cincinnati. He was ap- 
pointed Major in the Twenty-third Ohio Infantry in 1861, and 
distinguished himself in a number of engagements during the war. 
While still in the field, he was, in 1864, elected Member of Con- 
gress of the Second Ohio District, and was re-elected in 1866. 
Soon after, he was twice elected Governor of Ohio. He was 
again nominated for Congress, but was defeated. In 1875 he was, 
for the third time, elected Governor of his State. 

March 4 falling on Sunday, President Hayes took the oath of 
office privately on that day, and on the day following was pub- 
licly inaugurated at the east front of the Capitol, the oath being 




RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



1877.J HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION. 625 

administered by Chief Justice Waite. He selected the following- 
named as his cabinet: Secretary of State, William Maxwell Evarts 
of New York ; of the Treasury, John Sherman of Ohio ; of War, 
George W. McCrary of Iowa; of the Navy, Richard M. Thomp- 
son of Indiana ; Attorney General, Charles Devens of Massachu- 
setts ; Postmaster General, David M. Key of Tennessee ; Secre- 
tary of the Interior, Carl Shurz of Missouri. But three changes 
were made in the cabinet during Hayes's administration. Secre- 
tary Key was appointed a Judge in a U. S. District Court in Ten- 
nessee in June, 1879, an< ^ Secretary McCrary was made Justice of 
the Eighth U. S. Circuit on December 10 of the same year. Their 
positions in the cabinet were filled respectively by Horace May- 
nard of Tennessee, and Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota. In 
December, 1880, Secretary Thompson gave up the portfolio of 
Naval Affairs, and Nathan Goff Jr. of Western Virginia was ap- 
pointed in his stead. 

In South Carolina and Louisiana there had been considerable 
political disturbance, and two rival governments existed. October, 
1876, President Grant ordered United States troops thither tc 
preserve peace, and enforce the law. Both in his letter accepting 
the nomination, and in his inaugural, President Hayes had favored 
a conciliatory policy toward the South, and, at one of the first 
cabinet councils, it was decided to invite to Washington Governors 
Hampton and Chamberlain, the rival executives of South Caro- 
lina, and to send a commission of prominent men to inquire into 
I he state of affairs in Louisiana. As a result of these conferences, 
the United States troops were withdrawn from the two States 
named, in April, an action that caused the overthrow of the local 
republican governments, and put the States entirely in the control 
of t : democrats. 

President Hayes also speedily followed up his policy with 
regard to civil service reform, as indicated in his letter of accept- 
ance and his inaugural address. On July 22 he issued a circular 
fo. bidding officers of the general government from taking part in 
political organizations and caucuses, and from being assessed lor 
political purposes. He also repeatedly urged Congress to further 
the reform. A system of examination was adopted in the depart- 
ments, and, to some extent, promotions and discharges were 
founded upon them. 

The summer of 1877 was marked by labor disturbances of 
greater magnitude than had ever before been witnessed in this 



626 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [1877. 

country. There were strikes on most of the trunk lines of rail- 
roads, brought on by a general reduction in wages. The strikers 
seized the roads at prominent centers, and for several days in 
July all traffic was suspended. The military were called out, and 
at Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Reading, Pa., collisions 
between the troops and the mob resulted in serious loss of life. 
In Pittsburgh, the mob, maddened at being fired upon by a Phila- 
delphia regiment, drove the troops into a round-house, and in 
trying to burn them out, set fire to a large railroad depot. Before 
the flames were subdued, two thousand loaded cars, and property 
valued at more than three million dollars were destroyed. By the 
use of sufficient military force, and the arrest of hundreds of the 
ringleaders, the tumult was quelled. Some of the railroad com- 
panies acceded to the demands of the strikers, but the majority 
held to the reduction of wages. By July 30, the main roads were 
in working order, but the trouble continued here and there 
through the month of August. 

The imaginary tales of the magicians of old were outdone in 
the period now being considered by some remarkable applications 
of electricity. The usefulness of the telegraph was more than 
quadrupled by appliances invented for the transmission of mes- 
sages, two or more on the same wire at the same time. The 
telegraph lines had multiplied greatly since the first message was 
sent in 1844. In i860, there were 17,852 miles of line and 26,375 
miles of wire in the country, and twenty years thereafter there 
were 142,364 miles of line and 350,018 miles of wire, affording 
employment to 36,000 persons. Now, also, Professor Alexander 
G. Bell of Boston discovered the wonderful telephone. His first 
patent was taken out March 7, 1876, and his second, January 30, 
1877, an d in less than four years from the first date, his invention 
was in practical use in almost every place of any size in the coun- 
try. The immense increase in the mileage of railroads at this 
period is a notable fact. In 1870, the number of miles was about 
forty thousand. This was more than doubled in the decade fol- 
lowing, for in 1880 there were more than ninety thousand miles in 
operation. 

American daring, skill, and fortitude were also signalized at 
this period by an explorer, Henry M. Stanley, who, just before, 
had sought and found Dr. Livingstone, the famous traveler, 
in the heart of the continent of Africa. On September 18, 1877, 
Mr. Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo River, having ex- 



1878.] 



HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION. 



627 



plored it from its source, and ascertained it to be one of the 
largest rivers in the world. 

During this and the preceding year, there was a memorable 
moral and religious awakening throughout the country. The 
revival meetings of Moody and Sankey, neither of whom was an 
ordained clergyman, in all of the larger cities, were attended by 
throngs so large that special buildings were necessary to accom- 
modate them, and their converts were numbered by the thousand. 
During the same time, the labors of Francis Murphy, himself a 
man reformed from the lowest depths, gave the cause of temper- 
ance a powerful impetus. 

On February 28, 1878, Congress passed, over the veto of the 
President, the Bland Silver Bill, which provided for a silver 
dollar of four hundred 
and twelve and one- 
half grains ; restored 
its legal tender charac- 
ter, and limited the 
amount to be coined 
each month to not less 
than $2,000,000, nor 
more than $4,000,000. 
The bill also provided 
for the appointment of 
three commissioners to 

an international monetary conference called to adopt a common 
ratio between gold and silver, to establish internationally the use 
of bi-metallic money, and secure fixity of relative value between 
the metals. The conference met in Paris, France, but was attended 
with no practical result. 

June 7, 1878, an act repealing the bankrupt law adopted March 
2, 1867, was passed, and received the signature of the President. 
It took effect on September 1 of the same year. 

In 1878 and 1879, tne yellow fever prevailed to an alarming 
extent in the Southern States, especially in New Orleans and 
Memphis. From July 31 to November 12 in 1878, the number 
of deaths from this scourge reached twenty thousand. The fol- 
lowing year, the losses were not so great, but were, nevertheless, 
severe. 

Some difficulty had arisen between this country and England 
with relation to the Newfoundland fisheries, and the rights of 




THE SILVER DOLLAR. 



628 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [1879. 

United States citizens therein. It had been referred to a commis- 
sion that, on November 23, 1877, awarded as damages to England 
the sum of $5,500,000. This sum was paid on November 18, 1878, 
to the British Government in London by the American Minister, 
who accompanied it with a protest against the payment being 
understood as an acquiescence in the result of the Commission 
"as furnishing any just measure of the value of a participation by 
our citizens in the in-shore fisheries of the British provinces." 

On Tuesday, December 17, 1878, at 12:29 p.m., the announce- 
ment was made in the gold-room at the Stock Exchange in New 
York City, that " gold was at par." Sixteen years before, on 
Jan. 13, 1862, its price had begun to advance, and continued so to 
do until July n, 1864, when it stood at 2.85, gradually declining 
from that time. 

On January 1, 1879, the Government resumed specie payment 
The act authorizing it was passed on January 14, 1875. Every 
preparation had been made, and no interests were unfavorably 
affected. 

The tenth census of the United States was completed in 1880, 
giving a total for the country of 50,152,866, an increase in ten 
years of 11,596,883. The centre of population moved in the 
decade only about fifty-six miles, and that in a south-westerly 
direction. In 1870 it was forty-eight miles east by north of Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. In 1880 it was eight miles west by south of that 
city, the spot being in the State of Kentucky, one mile from the 
south bank of the Ohio River, and one mile and a half southeast 
of the village of Taylorville. 

On July 19 of this year, there arrived, as a gift from the 
Khedive of Egypt, one of the obelisks known as " Cleopatra's 
Needles." One had previously been sent to England, and in 
October, 1877, the project was broached of sending the other to 
this country. It was not, however, until June, 1880, that, in charge 
of Commodore Gorringe of the U. S. Navy, it left Alexandria on 
its long journey, safely performed in a little more than a month. 
It was set up in Central Park, New York City. 

Charles Stewart Parnell, M. P. of Ireland, visited the United 
States during this year in the interest of the Irish Land League, an 
organization created for the purpose of relieving the tenantry of 
his country from the oppressions of the landlords. He spoke in 
many of the large cities, and r:iised a considerable sum of money 
in aid of the league. Many branches of the society were organized 



1878.J 



HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION. 



629 



to further the object sought by raising money, and by the moral 
influence they were expected to exert. 

There were five tickets in the Presidential Election of 1880. 
The Republicans nominated General James Abram Garfield of 
Ohio for President, and General Chester Allen Arthur of New 
York for Vice-President. The Convention met at Chicago in 
June. The question of the " third term " came prominently 
before it, represented by General Grant's adherents. On the 
tenth day, and the thirty-sixth ballot, General Garfield was 
nominated. To the end, three hundred and six votes were cast 




THK WHITE HOUSE. 



for General Grant. The Democrats nominated General Winfield 
Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania for President, and William H. 
English of Indiana for Vice-President ; the Greenback Labor 
party presented General James B. Weaver of Iowa for President, 
and General Benjamin J. Chambers of Texas for Vice-President ; 
the Prohibitionists, Neal Dow of Maine for President, and Henry 
A. Thompson of Ohio for Vice-President ; and the Anti-Masonic 
party, John W. Phelps for President, and Samuel C. Pomeroy of 
Kansas for Vice-President. The Electoral Vote was divided 
between the Republicans, who secured two hundred and thirteen, 
and the Democrats, one hundred and fifty-six. The popular vote 



630 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [lGSTf, 

stood, Republican, 4,441,233; Democratic, 4,443,325 ; Greenback 
314,324, and Prohibition, io ; 487. 

President Hayes throughout his term favored and urged upon 
Congress the passage of measures improving the condition of 
the Indians. His policy was set forth in full in his last message 
on February 1, 1881. It suggested that the Indians should be 
prepared for citizenship by giving to their youth of both sexes 
that industrial and general education which is requisite to enable 
them to be self-supporting and capable of self-protection in civilized 
communities ; that lands should be allotted to the Indians in sever- 
alty, inalienable for a certain period ; that the Indians should have 
a fair compensation for their lands not required for individual allot- 
ments, the amounts to be invested with suitable safeguards for 
their benefit, and that, these prerequisites secured, the Indians 
should be made citizens, and invested with the rights and charged 
with the responsibilities of citizenship. 

A portion of this policy was inaugurated in April, 1878, in a 
school for Indian young men established in connection with 
•General Armstrong's famous Normal School for negroes, at 
Hampton, Virginia. It was begun with seventeen ex-prisoners of 
war out of a party of sixty -five, who had been confined for three 
years at Fort Marion, Florida, in charge of Captain R. H. Pratt, 
U. S. A. They represented the worst stock in the Indian Terri- 
tory ; the class which the West declared could not be elevated any 
more than the buffalo, and which gave rise to the creed, " There 
is no good Indian but a dead one." Under Captain Pratt, aided 
by Miss Mather, Miss Perrit, and other philanthropic ladies, who 
volunteered their services as teachers, the fierce prisoners, who 
came to St. Augustine in war-paint and blankets, were transformed 
into tractable pupils, wearing the national uniform, and tolerably 
skilled in various trades. A few months after their arrival at 
Hampton, eleven of them were received into the Christian Church 
connected with the Institution. 

Four of the young men from Fort Marion, Florida, were edu- 
cated by Bishop F. D. Huntington of the Central New York 
Diocese of the Episcopal Church. Two of them became clergy- 
men, and were ordained deacons at Syracuse, N. Y., in June, 1881. 
Of one of these deacons, Captain Pratt said that, at first, he was 
the worst among his prisoners, being so wild and untamable, that 
he feared he should be obliged to shoot him ! Yet the bishop 
declared, on the day of the young man's ordination, that he was 



1881.] GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION. 63 1 

one of the gentlest Christian men he ever knew. Both Indians 
returned to labor among their people, the Kiowas. 

By Act of Congress, a school was established at Carlisle, Pa., 
to accommodate some two hundred Indians, and within two years 
of its opening, its pupils made a portion of the shoes, harnesses, 
wagons, tinware, and other supplies needed by the Department 
of Indian Affairs. Indian young men were also now employed 
in the Indian Office of the government, training for clerks or 
superintendents of the agencies. 




GARFIKLD AND ARTHUR. 



The reduction of the debt during this administration was 
$208,824,730.27. The whole annual income of the government m 
the time of John Quincy Adams was less than the amount applied 
by President Playes in one month on the public debt. The highest 
point reached by the debt was on August 31, 1865, when the total, 
less cash in the Treasury, was $2,756,431,571.43. In fifteen years 
and six months there was paid $876,475,156.66. 

The home life in the White House at this time attracted much 
attention. Mrs. Hayes was hospitable, and deeply interested in 
public affairs, and although simple in her tastes, took great pride in 
keeping her home attractive, and personally superintending its 
decoration for official occasions. She early took a position in 
opposition to serving wine, or other spirituous liquors, in the 
Presidential mansion, and although she was severely criticised 
therefor, continued in her course bravely and consistently to the 
end of her husband's term. Her portrait was afterward hung in 
the Executive mansion, she being, save Martha Washington, the 
only lady thus honored. The ladies of Illinois manifested their 



632 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [1881. 

appreciation of her character by presenting her with an auto- 
graph album in six volumes of six hundred and fifty pages each. 
The first signature was that of Mrs. James K. Polk, widow of 
President Polk, and the other autographs were those of distin- 
guished men and women ; some were accompanied with character- 
istic sentiments, the book being illuminated with India-ink draw- 
ings of chaste design. 

On Friday, March 4, 1881, James Abram Garfield was inaugu- 
rated the twentieth President of the United States, being sworn 
into office by Chief Justice Waite. He was not yet fifty years of 
age, being the third youngest of the Presidents at the time of his 
inauguration. 

General Garfield was the third President who was a native of 
Ohio, his two immediate predecessors being from that State, 
making it seem destined to share with Virginia the title of being 
" Mother of Presidents." He was born in Orange Township, 
Cuyahoga County, November 19, 1831, the youngest of four chil- 
dren. His father died soon after, and his youth was spent in 
great poverty. At one time he drove on the tow-path of the Ohio 
Canal. He was graduated at Williams College in Massachusetts 
in 1856, and became first a Professor, and then the President of 
Hiram College — an institution attached to a sect called the 
" Disciples," of which he was a member. While a Professor, he 
married Miss Lucretia Rudolph, the daughter of a farmer living 
in the neighborhood. In 1859, ne was elected State Senator. 
He took an active part in raising troops in 1861, and was elected 
Colonel of an Ohio regiment. Sent into Eastern Kentucky, he 
was soon made a Brigadier-General. After a severe march, he 
surprised and routed General Humphrey Marshall, near Piketon. 
He joined General Buell, and participated in the second-day's 
fighting at Pittsburgh Landing, and in the siege of Corinth. In 
January, 1863, he was made Chief of Staff of the Army of the 
Cumberland, and, after the battle of Chickamauga, Major-General. 
In 1862 he was elected Member of Congress from the District 
formerly represented by Joshua R. Giddings, and thereafter served 
continuously in the House until January, 1881, when he was 
chosen U. S. Senator from Ohio. 

General Garfield selected the following named as his advisers : 
Secretary of State, James G. Blaine of Maine ; of the Treasury, 
William Windom of Minnesota ; of War, Robert Todd Lincoln of 
Illinois, son of the lamented Abraham Lincoln ; of the Navy, 






1 88 1.] GARFIELD ADMINISTRATION 633 

William H. Hunt of Louisiana; Attorney-General, Wayne McVeagh 
of Pennsylvania; Postmaster-General, Thomas L James of New 
York, and Secretary of the Interior, Samuel J. Kirkwood of 
Iowa. 

The dominant party of the country was divided into two fac- 
tions that, after the election of Garfield, became bitterly opposed 
to each other, their differences seeming to arise rather from a dis- 
agreement as to the disposition of the ''spoils" than from variance 
of opinion as to some principle. With the usual readiness of the 
people to bestow names on parties or factions, these were called 
"machine men" or "stalwarts," and "half-breeds" or "feather- 
heads," the first opposing, the second sustaining the administration. 
On May 16, 1881, Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Piatt of New 
York, the first of whom was the recognized leader of the faction 
opposed to the administration, resigned their seats in the Senate 
of the United States, alleging as the chief reason for their action 
that the President had appointed to be the Collector of the Port of 
New York a gentleman who was opposed to them and their political 
interests. Balloting for their successors was begun in the Legislature 
of New York State on Tuesday, May 31, and continued until July 
16, when, on the forty-eighth ballot, a successor was chosen to Mr. 
Piatt ; six days later, and on the fifty-sixth ballot, a choice was 
reached for Mr. Conkling's successor. 

In the midst of the trouble and excitement caused by the dis- 
agreement of the two factions, on Saturday, July 2, 1881, President 
Garfield, while at the railroad station in Washington, was shot by 
a man named Charles J. Guiteau. The assassin was at once 
apprehended. The terrible news of the attempted assassination 
was flashed to every town and city in the United States. Only 
once before in its history had the nation received such a shock. 
This was on the 14th of April, 1865, when President Lincoln was 
shot. At the startling tidings that again their President had been 
stricken down, men of every shade of political belief, and from 
every portion of the land, forgot their differences, and, in the 
shadow of this great sorrow, remembered only their loyalty to a 
common country. For many long weeks the President trembled 
between life and death, and the entire nation anxiously waited the 
result. The Christian heroism of the sufferer and the tender de- 
votion of his wife touched all hearts, and even across the ocean, 
whole peoples waited, hoping so grand a character might be spared 



634 garfield's administration. [1S81. 

to the world. Mr. Garfield was finally carried to Elberon, N. J., 
in the hope that the sea air would revive his exhausted energy. But 
in vain. He died September 19. Every civilized country manifested 
the profoundest sympathy with our loss. In England this feeling 
was especially pronounced. That a prayer for an American Execu- 
tive unconnected with any royal family should have been inserted in 
the church service, and that, on his death, the Queen should order 
her court to wear mourning, were events without precedent in Eng- 
lish history. Mr. Garfield's body was borne to Washington, where 
it lay in state in the Capitol, and was finally conveyed to Cleveland, 
Ohio, and buried amid the tears of the nation. Through this long 
journey there lay upon the coffin a wreath of flowers, placed there 
by the direction of the widowed Queen of England in loving sym- 
pathy with the martyred President's wife. 

On receiving official information of the death of President Gar- 
field, the Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur, took the oath of office 
as President, in his own house in New York, about two o'clock on 
the morning of September 20; two days later, he was sworn in by 
the Chief Justice at Washington. 

Mr. Arthur was born at Fairfield, Vt, in 1830; graduated at 
Union College, 1848; and, having studied law, was admitted to 
the bar. Here he soon obtained a high position, especially dis- 
tinguishing himself as the champion of the legal rights of the 
colored race. He early took an interest in politics as a Clay 
Whig, and was a delegate to the convention at Saratoga where 
the republican party of New York was founded. When E. D. 
Morgan was re-elected Governor of New York, he appointed 
Mr. Arthur on his staff; first as Engineer-in-Chief, and, after- 
ward, as Inspector-General and Quartermaster-General. In the 
last position, Mr. Arthur granted large contracts, and had every 
opportunity for advancing his private interests, yet, it is said, 
he left the office poorer in purse than when he entered it. In 
1863, he returned to his law practice in New York City. Pres- 
ident Grant appointed Mr. Arthur Collector of the port of New 
York, November 20, 1871. He held this post until July, 1878, 
when he was removed for not obeying an order issued by Presi- 
dent Hayes, which forbade persons in the civil service of the United 
States from taking an active part in the management of political 
affairs (p, 625), 



i88i.] 



Arthur's administration. 



635 



President Arthur retained for a time the cabinet of his prede- 
cessor, but afterward chose as his advisers : Frederick T. Freling- 
huysen of New Jersey, Secretary of State; Charles J. Folger of 
New York, Secretary of the Treasury; Robert T. Lincoln of Illi- 
nois, Secretary of War; William E. Chandler of New Hampshire, 
Secretary of the Navy ; Henry M. Teller of Colorado, Secretary of 
the Interior; Timothy O. Howe of Wisconsin, Postmaster-General; 




CAPTURE OF A REDOUBT AT YORKTOWN DURING THE REVOLUTION. 

and Benjamin Harris Brewster of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General. 

The following changes were made in the cabinet during the 
administration : On the death of Postmaster-General Howe, he was 
succeeded, April 3, 1883, by Walter O. Gresham of Indiana, who 
resigned September 24 of the following year. His successor, Frank 
Hatton of Iowa, was appointed October 14, 1884. Charles J. Folger, 
Secretary of the Treasury, died September 5, 1884, and was suc- 
ceeded by Walter O. Gresham, September 24, 1884. Mr. Gresham 
retained this position only one month and four days, when he was 
followed by Hugh McCulloch of Indiana, who had filled the same 
position during Johnson's administration. 

On October 19, 1881, the hundredth anniversary of the Sur- 
render of Yorktown was celebrated. It was a unique event. 
France naturally took a glad part in a jubilee that her aid during 






6$6 THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. [1884. 

the Revolution had alone rendered possible ; with England, it was 
different, for she was our old-time enemy, and our fathers had 
taught us to hate the "red-coats" with a bitter hatred. But Eng- 
land had recently mourned with the United States about the bed- 
side of the late President. In this common sorrow all former 
causes of alienation had vanished, and only the remembrance of a 
common brotherhood remained. In grateful acknowledgment of 
our affection for the "mother country" the President directed, that, 
during the anniversary, a national salute should be fired in honor 
of the flag of Great Britain. So it came about that, on the his- 
toric field of Yorktown, the lilies of France, the cross of St. George, 
and the Stars and Stripes, floated in sweet accord. 

In the spring of 1882, a disastrous flood in the Mississippi 
Valley rendered 100,000 persons homeless. An appropriation was 
made by Congress, and large amounts were subscribed by private 
citizens, to relieve the sufferings of these people. In the following 
spring, there were heavy floods in the Ohio Valley, sweeping 
away bridges, damaging mills, and devastating large tracts of 
country. 

On May 24, 1883, the first suspension bridge between Brooklyn 
and New York was opened. This remarkable structure was begun 
January 3, 1870. The bridge roadway, from its terminus in Brooklyn 
to its terminus in New York, is 85 feet wide, and 5,989 feet long — 
a little over a mile. The height of the towers is 278 feet. The length 
cf the suspended span, from tower to tower, is 1,596 feet, and its 
height from the water at the centre, during high-tide, is 135 feet. 
The four great cables are 15% inches in diameter, each cable con- 
taining 5,296 parallel (not twisted) galvanized steel, oil-coated 
wires, closely wrapped, and weighing, with its covering, 897^8 
tons. The heat of the sun causes these cables to vary in length 
as much as six inches in the course of the day. The four cables 
are estimated to have a strength of 48,800 tons, or more than 
four times that needed to support the bridge when crowded 
with passengers, vehicles, and cars. The bridge is traversed 
not only by roadways and footwalks, but also by trolley cars from 
all parts of Brooklyn. "This bridge forms, practically, a street, be- 
longing jointly to the two cities, and making, with Third Avenue, 
the Bowery, and Chatham Street, New York, and Fulton Street 
continuing into Fulton Avenue on the Brooklyn side, a great thor- 



1884.] THE CENTENNIAL DECADE. 637 

oughfare. fourteen miles long, already continuously built up, from 
the Harlem River to East New York." Later years have seen the East 
River spanned by three other notable bridges, different in principle 
of construction, but most remarkable as providing for the public 
great roadways for wagon, carriage, automobile and trolley traffic. 

A World's Industrial and Cotton Exposition was held at New 
Orleans in the winter of 1884-5. ^ ts object was to commemorate 
the centenary of the beginning of the cotton industry on this con- 
tinent. The exhibit excited wide-spread interest, and was of spe- 
cial value because of the remarkable displays made by Mexico, Cen- 
tral and South America, and the West Indies. President Arthur, 
in the Executive Mansion at Washington, and in the presence of a 
concourse of distinguished men, formally opened the Exposition. 

A Congress of scientific men from the principal nations met at 
Washington (1884). It decided to adopt Greenwich as the zero 
meridian from which to reckon longitude, and, in addition, a uni- 
versal day, beginning at midnight of the Greenwich day, and count- 
ing up to twenty-four hours. 

During this year, also, four standard meridians were adopted 
by which to run railway trains, and to regulate local time. These 
meridians — the centres of the time belts — are 15° of space, and one 
hour of time apart. The Eastern meridian, 75 ° W. from Green- 
wich, passes near Philadelphia. The Central meridian, qo° W. 
longitude, passes near New Orleans and St. Louis. The Mountain 
meridian, 105 W. longitude, passes near Denver. The Pacific me- 
ridian, 120 W. longitude, forms a part of the boundary line between 
Nevada and California. 

The sad fate of two Arctic Expeditions excited general sym- 
pathy. July 8, 1879, the Jeannette, a steam yacht, fitted out by 
James Gordon Bennett, left San Francisco, under the command of 
Lieutenant G. W. De Long. Soon after entering the Arctic Sea, 
the vessel was caught in the ice, and floated helplessly about 
for over twenty-one months, the play of winds and currents. 
June 13, 1 88 1, the ship sank. The men took to the ice, with sleds 
and boats mounted on runners, and, amid terrible hardships, 
slowly struggled southward. The nearest coast was that of 
Siberia, over four hundred miles away. Of the three parties into 
which they separated, one, under Lieutenant Danenhower and 
Chief Engineer G. W. Melville, entered the Lena River, and was 



6jS 



ARTHUR S ADMINISTRATION. 



[1SS1 



rescued by the natives ; a second has never been heard from ; the 
third, containing Lieutenant De Long, wandered over the wastes 
of the Lena delta, until all perished of hunger and cold. 

In the summer of 1881, a Signal Service station was established, 
under the command of Lieutenant A. W. Greely, at Lady Franklin 
bay. It was one of a series of International polar stations for 




investigating the meteorology of the Arctic regions. Elaborate 
observations were taken and several exploring parties sent out. 
Lieutenant Lockwood and Sergeant Brainard reached the furthest 
point north yet attained by man. But the expected supplies did 
not arrive, and, in August, 1883, Greely and his little company 
returned southward. After great suffering, they reached Cape 
Sabine, where they went into winter-quarters. Their scanty pro- 
visions were eked out with moss and lichens, and seal-skin broth. 
When the relief squadron, under Commander Schley, found them, 
June 22, 1884, only seven of the twenty-five members of the party 
were alive. Ensign Harlow, of the rescuing fleet, described thus 



I To.)] CENTENNIAL EECADE. 63) 

the pitiable scene that met his eves on landing : " Hurrying on, I 
came to the tent. One pole was standing, and, about it, the dirty 
canvas bellied and flapped in the fierce gusts. Brainard and 
Biederbeck lay outside at the bottom of the tent and a little to 
the left of the opening ; one, with his face swollen and rheumy so 
that he could barely show by his eyes the wild excitement that 
filled him ; the other, muttering, in a voice that c juld scarcely be 
heard in the howling of the gale, his hungry appeal for food. 
Reaching over, I wiped their faces with my handkerchief, spoke 
a word of encouragement to them, and then pushed aside the flap 
of the tent and entered. The view was appalling. Stretched out 
on the ground in their sleeping-bags, lay Greely, Connell, and 
Ellison, their pinched and haggard faces, their glassy, sunken 
eyes, their shaggy beards, and disheveled hair, their wistful 
appeals for food, making a picture not to be forgotten." — (The 
Century, May, 1885.) Even while perishing, one by one, of 
starvation, the scientific explorations had been continued, and the 
results of the expedition have proved of great interest and value. 

Among the important measures passed by the Forty-seventh 
Congress were the following : an apportionment bill, based upon 
the census of 1880, fixing the number of members in the House of 
Representatives at 325, an addition of 32 members (the new ratio 
of representation being 151,912); a bill forbidding the immigra- 
tion of Chinese into this country for the period of ten years ; 
a civil service bill regulating, by means of a system of examina- 
tions, the method of appointments and promotions in the civil 
service of the United States ; and a bill reducing single letter- 
postage from three cents to two cents per half-ounce. 

In the Forty-eighth Congress, the democratic party had a 
majority of the House of Representatives, thus presaging the 
coming revolution in the politics of the nation. Among the most 
noticeable measures that were adopted by this Congress were the 
following : a bill increasing from one half an ounce to an ounce 
the weight of a letter to be carried for two cents ; and a bill con- 
stituting the extensive territory of Alaska (see page 611) into a 
civil and judicial district, with the temporary seat of government 
at Sitka ; it provided for the appointment of a governor, judge, 
marshal, and other officers, who are to hold their positions during 
four years, but authorized no legislative assembly and no con- 
gressional delegate from the district. 

The appointment, December 8, 1880, of General William B. 



640 Arthur's administration. [1882 

Hazen, in place of General A. J. Myer, in charge of the Signal 
Service of the United States, and, still later, the bitter discussion 
over the Greely Expedition, served to call general attention to 
the increasingly-valuable services of this Bureau. The Weather 
Department proper was established by Act of Congress in 1870. 
Its modestly-named " probabilities " have proved so reliable, often 
over 90 per cent, having been verified, that, in common speech, 
they are termed " predictions." About two hundred Signal 
Service stations are scattered over the country, where observa- 
tions are taken three times per day at the same instant. The 
results are telegraphed to Washington. The laws of the move- 
ments of storms across the continent are now so well understood, 
that these local observations furnish data for computing the time 
and the character of the meteorological changes that will be 
likely to occur in any part of the country. 

The excess of the income over the expenditures of the national 
government, and the vast amount of money consequently under 
the control of Congress, as well as the constant diminution in the 
amount of the United States bonds, that formed the basis of the 
banking system, through the steady reduction of the public debt, — 
all led to a general feeling that the imposts and excises should 
be reduced. A Tariff Commission was therefore appointed, May 
15, 1882; its report was made to Congress, December 4, 1882; 
and a bill, embodying many changes in the Tariff, became a law, 
March 3, 1883. This, however, failed to produce the expected 
diminution of revenue. The Morrison bill was accordingly re- 
ported, February 4, 1884, which proposed a "horizontal reduc- 
tion " of 20 per cent, in the duty of nearly all imported articles. 
This measure was defeated in the House, May 6, 1884. Tariff 
reduction remained accordingly before the country as a political 
question of pressing importance, and, complicated as it is with the 
vital issues of protection and free trade, promises long to demand 
the wisest statesmanship for its solution. 

It is generally held'that the principle of" rotation in office " was 
introduced into our political system by President Jackson (p. 419). 
This policy steadily gained favor until Marcy's maxim, " To the 
victors belong the spoils," became the commonly-accepted view ; 
and after every important election, the successful party was accus- 
tomed to fill even the menial offices of government with its favor- 
ites. Under such a system, the qualification of the applicant was 
of much less importance than the service he had done the party. 



1884] CENTENNIAL DECADE. 64 1 

Thoughtful men began to see that this method, so unlike that 
pursued in all ordinary business transactions, was wrong in theory 
and harmful in practice. The opposition soon found expression 
through the press, and was crystallized in political platforms. 
President Hayes, on his accession, promised to make " no dismis- 
sal except for cause, and no promotion except for merit." It was 
not easy to carry out this advanced doctrine. The agitation, 
however, went on, and civil service reform gradually became a 
distinct party issue. Associations were formed, and documents 
distributed, in order to disseminate correct ideas upon this sub- 
ject. Two distinct claims were made. First, that all appoint- 
ments to office should be based solely on the qualifications of the 
candidate ; and second, that promotion and the tenure of office 
should depend alone on the faithful and efficient discharge of duty. 
So persistently were these views pressed by able and far-seeing 
men, and so surely did the common sense of the masses respond, 
that, during the campaign of 1884, the aspirants for the Presi- 
dency were called upon to express their sentiments with regard 
to this subject ; and in the sequel the election was, as many think, 
decided by a large number of republicans, known as " Independ- 
ents " or " Mugwumps," voting for the democratic candidate on 
the ground that he would be most likely to carry out the princi- 
ples of the civil service reform movement. 

President Arthur's administration proved to be one of those 
fortunate periods when little history is made, and general quiet 
and order reign. Between March 1, 1881, and March 1, 1885, the 
national debt was reduced $474,033,062.59. The people soon for- 
got that Arthur was only "an accidental President," like Tyler, 
Fillmore, and Johnson, and came to honor him for his prudent 
management of public affairs. An examination of his state papers 
shows that, in general, he advocated those measures that were 
beneficial, and opposed those that the event has shown unwise. 
In a word, he assumed office with modesty, held it with discretion, 
and left it with dignity. 

The democratic party nominated Grover Cleveland of New 
York, for President, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, for 
Vice-President. The republican party selected James G. Blaine 
of Maine, for President, and John A. Logan of Illinois, for Vice- 
President. The people's party chose B. F. Butler of Massachu- 
setts, for President, and A. M. West of Mississippi, for Vice-presi- 
dent. The national prohibition party nominated J. P. St. John of 



6 4 2 



CLEVELAND S ADMINISTRATION. 



[I88 5 



Kansas, for President, and William Daniel of Maryland, for Vice- 
President. The woman's rights party selected Belva A. Lock- 
wood of the District of Columbia, for President, and Mrs. Dr. 
Clcmence Lozier of New York, for Vice-President. The American 
political alliance nominated YV. L. Ellsworth of Pennsylvania, for 
President, and Charles PI. Waterman of New York, for Vice- 
President. The candidates of the democratic party were elected, 
thus insuring the return of that party to the control of the govern- 
ment for the first time since the retirement of James Buchanan, 
in 1861. 

Grover Cleveland was inaugurated March 4, 1885. His life 
had been comparatively uneventful. He was born in Caldwell, 
New Jersey, March 18, 
1837. Shortly after, his 
father, a Presbyterian 
clergyman, moved to Cen- 
tral New York. It was 
before the days of rail- 
roads, and the journey 
was made by schooner up 
the Hudson to Albany, 
and thence by packet on 
the Erie Canal. Young 
Grover was pursuing his 
academic studies when his 
father's death left him, at 
sixteen, without a dollar 
to continue his education. 
Having made several ef- 
forts to earn his living, he 

borrowed $25, and started west to carve his fortune. At Buffalo, 
he entered a law office, began on Blackstone at once, and, in 1859, 
was admitted to the bar. His "marked industry, unpretentious 
courage, and unswerving honesty " won him rapid promotion. 
In 1863, he commenced his political life, filling, in succession, the 
offices of Assistant District-Attorney, Sheriff, and Mayor. Being 
nominated as the candidate of reform, he was elected, in 1882, as 
Governor of New York by a majority of 192,854. This remark- 
able vote gave him a national reputation, and, ere his term expired, 
he became a candidate for the highest office in the gift of the 
people. 




GROVER CLEVELAND. 



iCS 5 ] 



CENTENNIAL DECADE, 



64. 



President Cleveland chose the following as his cabinet advisers : 
Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Secretary of State ; Daniel Man- 
ning of New York, Secretary of the Treasury ; William C. Endi- 




I. BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL GRANT. 2. HIS TOMB IN RIVERSIDE PARK, NEW YORK CITY. 3. VIEW FROM 
RIVERSIDE PARK, LOOKING NORTH. 4. FLEET FIRING SALUTE IN THE HUDSON RIVER ON THE DAY OF 
HIS FUNERAL. 



cott of Massachusetts, Secretary of War ; William C. Whitney of 
New York, Secretary of the Navy ; L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, 
Secretary of the Interior ; William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, Post- 
master-General ; A. H. Garland of Arkansas, Attorney-General. 

The long and painful sickness of ex-President Grant during the 
summer of 1885, aroused general sympathy. His last days were 






644 Cleveland's administration. [1885 

filled with efforts to harmonize the recently-warring sections of the 
country; and about his bedside there gathered alike the leaders of 
the Union and the Confederate armies. He died at Mount Mc- 
Gregor, July 23. At the receipt of the news of his death, flags were 
put at half-mast, bells were tolled, and symbols of mourning dis- 
played in every part of the United States. The funeral was made 
a national and military one, the pall-bearers being chosen by Presi- 
dent Cleveland, and the ceremonies conducted by General Hancock. 
The body was buried in Riverside Park, New York City, with a 
pomp and parade unparalleled in our history. The wonderful effect 
of General Grant's uniform kindness toward those whom, while in 
arms, he had fought so relentlessly, was well shown in the following 
extract from a prominent Southern paper: "The South unites with 
the North in paying tribute to his memory. He saved the Union. 
For this triumph — and time has shown it to be a triumph for the 
South as well as the North — he is entitled to and will receive the 
grateful tribute of the millions who, in the course of time, will crowd 
this continent with a hundred imperial States." 




CHAPTER XX. 

ERA OF REFORM 1885-I9OO 

MONG the questions which deeply interested 
the people during recent administrations was 
the development of the navy. In 1884, Secre- 
tary Chandler recommended to Congress the 
construction of seven modern cruisers annu- 
ally for ten years. Prior to 1861, our ships were 
the best in the world, when an Advisory Board 
was appointed by the President to recommend 
a plan for strengthening and perfecting the navy. 
But very little was done until a beginning was made 
by President Arthur. During this administration the 
Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Dolphin were built by John 
Roach on designs purchased by the before-mentioned ad- 
visory board. In 1885, at a critical time in the progress of construc- 
tion, the department came under the administration of William C. 
Whitney, Secretary of the Navy. One of his first acts was to object 
to the acceptance by the Government of the cruiser Dolphin, based 
upon the report of a special board of examiners, consisting of Com- 
mander George E. Belknap, Commander R. D. Evans, and Con- 
structing Engineer Herman Winter of the navy, appointed by the 
Secretary. The Government was compelled to complete the Chicago, 
Atlanta, and Boston itself, using the yard of Roach and other build- 
ers for the purpose. In his annual report the Secretary urged the 
importance of the further and complete reorganization of the Depart- 
ment which he regarded faulty in method and results. In 1886, the 
fleet consisted of fourteen turreted monitors, five fourth-rate ves- 
sels of small tonnage, and twenty-seven cruisers. In 1889, the Gov- 
ernment began to feel the effects of the naval policy of the past and 
the growth of the navy was apparent. The expenditures per an- 
num were about $14,000,000. 

The army of 1885 consisted of 2,154 officers and 24,755 men, 
and was sustained at an expense of $32,700,000. They were dis- 



646 ERA OF REFORM [1885. 

tributed at the frontiers and to watch the Indians. In 1884, the 
Indians were quiet. The policy instituted by President Hayes of 
educating Indian children and encouraging the general adoption of 
the regular industries and habits of civilized people was continued. 
There had been established by Government eighty-one boarding, 
seventy-six day, and six industrial schools, on the several reser- 
vations. Twenty-three other schools were maintained by churches 
and private associations. 

In 1885, encroachments had been made upon the Indian reser- 
vation in the Oklahoma region, Indian Territory, by white settlers, 
cattle-men and others. This caused an uprising of the Indians which 
brought the Government to see the necessity of recognizing Indian 
rights. The army was called upon to drive out the encroachers, 
which it did without difficulty. The total Indian population at this 
time, exclusive of Alaska, was about 260,000, and they occupied 
about 212,466 square miles of territory. 

During President Cleveland's administration there was a con- 
tinual reduction of the public debt, as had been the case in Presi- 
dent Arthur's time. There was also a further contraction of 
national banknote circulation. Congress had failed in 1884 to enact 
any legislation for the reduction of the revenue, relief of the banks, 
and stoppage of silver coinage. Other eventful acts of Congress 
in 1885 were the Edmunds Anti-polygamy Bill, which was aimed 
to suppress Mormonism ; Senator Hoar's Presidential Succession 
Bill, which provided that in case of removal, death, resignation, or 
inability, the succession should fall in the f ollowng order : Vice-Presi- 
dent, Secretary of State, Treasury, War, Attorney-General, Post- 
master-General, Secretary of Navy, Secretary of Interior, until such 
disability be removed or a President be re-elected. 

Senator Blair's Foreign Contract Labor Bill was also passed, 
which prohibited the importation and migration of foreigners and 
aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United 
States, the Territories, or the District of Columbia. A curious 
illustration of the operation of this law occurred later in 1888, when 
the episcopal church of the Holy Trinity, New York, brought over 
the Rev. Dr. Wilbur Watkins from England, to fill its vacant pul- 
pit. Friendly objections were made by Mr. John S. Kennedy, presi- 
dent of the St. Andrews society of New York, on the ground that 
this was skilled labor imported under contract. The case was tried, 
and the church was obliged to pay a fine for evasion of the law. 
Mr. Kennedy, however, furnished the money, as his object was to 



1 886-7.] Cleveland's administration 647 

test the law and, if possible, show its weakness. In 1885, there was 
also an understanding entered into with Canada over the fisheries 
question. 

In 1 886 great financial influence was exerted throughout the coun- 
try upon bank circulation by repeated calls for 3% bonds. Their 
number had been reduced from 200,000,000 in 1883, to 138,000,000 
in 1885. The last of these bonds was redeemed in 1887. Not- 
withstanding the reduction, there seems to have been no reason to 
anticipate an abandonment of the system for many years. In 
twenty-two years the country has paid off a bonded indebtedness 
exceeding $1,380,000,000, and reduced the annual interest charges 
from over $150,000,000 to less than $41,000,000. The condition of 
the national banks in 1887 deserves* notice, in that bonds exceeding 
by 72.9 per cent, the minimum amount required by law in 1883, 
were reduced to .^2 in 1887. 

At this time the Government was in possession of 22,124,563.92 
acres of what are known as public lands. 

The year 1887 was marked early by the resignation of Daniel 
Manning, who had made an excellent Secretary of the Treasury. 
He was in ill-health, and later in the year died. His successor was 
Charles S. Fairchild, who had been Assistant-Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. He retained the office during the remainder of President 
Cleveland's term. There was another change in the cabinet, due 
to the appointment of Secretary of the Interior, L. Q. C. Lamar, 
to the Supreme Court bench, as successor to Justice Wood, deceased. 
Postmaster-General Vilas was appointed Secretary of Interior, and 
Don M. Dickinson, of Michigan, was made Postmaster-General. 
After years of apparently fruitless discussion, Congress passed and 
the President signed the Inter-State Commerce Bill, February, 1887. 
The value and importance of this law has increased, and the rail- 
roads of the country have gradually adapted themselves to its con- 
ditions. 

Mr. Cleveland issued an order to return to the States the flags 
captured from Confederate troops during the Civil War, which 
are now stored in the War Department in Washington. This 
order met with serious opposition, particularly from members of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, and was rescinded. The 
ground upon which the President withdraw the order was that 
the flags are public property and under the direct control of 
Congress. 

The centenary celebration of the adoption of our Constitution 



648 ERA OF REFORM. [l888 

of 1787, took place in Philadelphia, September 15th, 16th, and 17th, 
1887. The city was given up to the celebration. The whole af- 
fair was attended by people from every State and Territory, and 
indicated strongly the sentiment of veneration which held the peo- 
ple to the acts of the Fathers. 

On the 1 2th of March, 1888, began a violent snow-storm which 
was unusual for that time of year and remarkable in the annals of 
history. It lasted for three days, during which the city of New 
York was practically isolated by rail or telegraph from the rest 
of the country. Snow was piled up to a depth of from eight to ten 
or more feet in the heart of the city, and trains were caught on the 
road so that passengers were housed and unable even to obtain 
necessary food. It looked for the time as though the city might 
be visited by famine, so great w r as the scarcity of food and the im- 
possibility of obtaining further supplies. Many men doing busi- 
ness in the lower parts of the city found it almost impossible to 
reach their homes in the evening. Instances of strong men losing 
their lives almost in sight of their homes were not wanting. 

The great blizzard of 1888 will long be remembered. It in- 
dicated a tendency to atmospheric derangement which led peo- 
ple almost to expect strange and wonderful things. Adding this 
experience to the earthquake in South Carolina, the discoveries of 
natural gas in the oil regions, and the abundant rains and strong 
winds of 1889, it seemed at the time as though the expectation of 
the people were likely to be realized. 

More attention had been paid to Civil Service rules than here- 
tofore, and during the year 15,852 persons were examined for ad- 
mission in the classified Civil Service of the Government in all its 
branches. 

Some trouble had arisen as to the rights of fishermen on the 
Canadian coast, and a commission appointed by England and the 
United States prepared a treaty, which was signed by the Presi- 
dent but rejected by the Senate. The President thereupon issued 
a proclamation asking for greater powers of retaliation, but the 
Senate refused this on the ground that sufficient powers had 
already been conferred upon him. The people were much inter- 
ested in this matter, as it was generally believed that there was a 
"campaign" object in the discussion. In fact, later, the British 
Minister, Lord Sackville, was drawn into the indiscretion of an- 
swering an anonymous letter addressed by one Charles F. Murchi- 
son, of Pomona, California, asking the advice in regard to the fishery 



1 888.] Harrison's administration. 649 

and tariff discussions. As this seemed like proof Of English inter- 
ference, much indignation was felt, and Mr. Cleveland requested 
the recall of the Minister, and finally sent him his passports. 

The issues which became prominent in the Presidential cam- 
paign were tariff reform, free trade, and protection. The Repub- 
licans represented the latter policy and the Democratic party es- 
poused the cause of tariff reform, as represented in Congress by 
what was known as the Mills Bill. The Republicans strove to show 
that the Mills Bill and the President's utterances committed their 
opponents ultimately to a free-trade policy. Their own position was 
to first abolish the entire internal revenue system before destroying 
protective tariff rates. 

Civil Service Reform, the Southern problem, the personal record 
of candidates, and all other questions, including prohibition, dwindled 
into comparative insignificance. 

The election resulted in favor of the Republican candidates, and 
Benjamin Harrison, President, and Levi P. Morton, Vice-President, 
were declared elected by 233 college votes to 168. 

Benjamin Harrison was born at North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 
1833. The lines of his descent was as follows: He was the son 
of John Scott Harrison, who was the son of William Henry Har- 
rison, ninth President of the United States, who was the son of 
Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
who was a descendant of Thomas Harrison, a Lieutenant-General 
under Cromwell, a member of Parliament that signed the death- 
warrant of Charles I., and was afterward, upon the accession of 
James II., executed by the Royalists. Pepys relates that he saw the 
heart of Thomas Harrison removed from his body and passed 
around the company, possibly the object of contempt and derision. 
Thus was the new President a representative of a notable line of an- 
cestors. 

In i860, he became the Republican candidate for Reporter of 
the Supreme Court, to which office he was elected. A year later 
he presented himself to Governor Morton of Indiana for service in 
the war and offered to raise a regiment. His offer was accepted, and 
he bought a military cap, engaged a fifer and drummer, and began 
recruiting. The regiment was soon filled. Governor Morton made 
him Colonel, and the 70th Indiana was ready for action. On the 
field and in the camp he displayed admirable qualities as an officer. 
He was thoughtful of his men, a good disciplinarian, attentive to 
his duties, and courageous. He never asked his men to do what he 



6so 



ERA OF REFORM. 



ti88 9 



was unwilling himself to perform. It was always "Come .on, boys!" 
and he led them into action. He was a close student of the art and 
science of war, as he had been of his books within the secluded walls 

of college. 

His proficiency as an officer and the excellent discipline of his 
regiment were noticed by his brigade commander. He distinguished 
himself in the Atlanta campaign and at Beach Tree Creek, where he 
earned his promotion upon the recommendation of General Joseph 
Hooker. After the war he entered the law firm of Porter, Harrison 
& Fishback, in Indianapolis, and always occupied a high position 
as attorney and counsel in his State. He was elected United States 




BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



Senator in 1880, and filled out the full term of office. He was a 
believer in Civil Service Reform, and in 1882 made a strong speech 
in its favor on the floor of the Senate. He opposed the greenback 
theory, and on the tariff question, in 1886, he said: "I am sure 
none of us are so anxious for cheap goods that we would be willing 
to admit the spoils of the poor into our houses." He spoke in favor 
of justice to the laboring man, and recommended the building up 
of the navy, and strongly advocated a fair count at elections in 
the Southern States. 

Thus, by birth, education, and experience, he gave promise of 
worthily filling the Presidential chair. 

Mr. Harrison was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1889. 



1889.J Harrison's administration. 651 

His first official act was the announcement of his Cabinet, as 
follows: James G. Blaine, of Maine, Secretary of State; William 
Windom, of Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury ; Redfield 
Proctor, of Vermont, Secretary of War; William H. H. Miller, 
of Indiana, Attorney-General ; John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania, 
Postmaster-General ; Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York, Secretary 
of the Navy ; John W. Noble, of Missouri, Secretary of the 
Interior; and Jeremiah M. Rusk, of Wisconsin, Secretary of Agri- 
culture. 

Much interest was exhibited in his appointments to minor 
offices. It was hoped that his attitude toward Civil Service 
Reform would be eminently friendly. It was found, however, 
that the Jacksonian principle of " To the victors belong the 
spoils," was not to be ignored. The number of removals of Dem- 
ocrats and appointments of working Republicans, was as great as 
professional politicians could have reasonably asked. 

One of the early appointments in Mr. Harrison's administra- 
tion was that of Corporal Tanner as Commissioner of Pensions. 
His appointment was a signal for general rejoicing in the ranks 
of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was known to be an 
ardent advocate of a liberal distribution of the surplus in the 
Treasury among the boys in blue. To give some idea of the 
growth of the number of pensioners during a comparatively short 
period, the following figures are quoted : 

In 1884, the pension rules included 322,756 names, and there 
was expended $34,456,600; in 1885, there were 345,125 names and 
$38,090,985 expended ; in 1886, ^65,783 names and $44,708,027 
expended; in 1887, there were over 400,000 names on the list and 
$52,824,000 expended ; in 1888, there were 452,557 names and some- 
thing over $80,000,000 expended ; and the increase continued under 
the new Commissioner. The drain upon the surplus became so 
noticeable that, in the month of August, 1889, there seemed to have 
been an increase in the public debt instead of a decrease, and the 
people became alarmed, and the criticisms upon the course of Cor- 
poral Tanner became so violent that he was forced to resign. His 
resignation was handed in and accepted on the 17th of Septem- 
ber, 1889. 

On the 30th of April, 1889, the centennial of the inauguration 
of George Washington as President of the United States, under 
the Constitution of 1787, was celebrated in the City of New York. 
It was observed with great pomp and ceremony, and for three 



6j2 Harrison's administration. [1889 

days all industrial and mercantile occupations were abandoned in 
the city, and the people gave themselves up to participation in the 
pageant. 

But we must be contented with only a rapid survey of more 
recent events. 

On the 31st of May, 1889, owing to heavy protracted rains, a 
dam at the head of Conemaugh Valley, Pennsylvania, gave 
way. The water rushed down the course of the Conemaugh 
River like a wall, carrying everything before it — bridges, houses, 
villages, towns, and cities. So overwhelming and rapid was the 
flood that people had no time to escape even to the surrounding 
hills, and thousands of lives were lost. In the town of Johnstown 
were the Cambria Iron Works and other furnaces. Two railroad 
lines ran through the valley, the Baltimore and Ohio and the 
Pennsylvania railroads. The water even overtook trains of cars 
standing on the track and engulfed them. The number of peo- 
ple drowned exceeded 3,500. The news of the disaster awakened 
the greatest sympathy throughout the entire country, and millions 
of dollars were immediately subscribed to relieve the suffering. 

During the summer of this year the Territory of Oklahoma, 
which had long been coveted by the growing populations of the 
West, was thrown open to the "boomers." It was immediately 
taken possession of by an advanced guard of people, who lined the 
border of the territory days before they were admitted, and who 
afterwards formed themselves into law-abiding communities, 
elected their officers, and went on about their business after the 
most approved American fashion. 

At about the same time four new States were formed out of 
rapidly developing territories of the North-west. North Dakota, 
South Dakota, Montana, and Washington became integral parts 
of the sisterhood of States. 

Among the events of the year, was the death of Father Damien, 
who sacrificed his life for the lepers in the Sandwich Islands ; and 
of John Ericsson, inventor of the famous Monitor. There was a 
peaceful revolution in Brazil, by which the Emperor Dom Pedro 
was deposed and a Republic ushered in. 

The question of the rights of the United States in Bering Sea 
was raised by the capture of some British sealing vessels. 

On the invitation of Secretary Blaine, a successful congress 
looking toward friendly relations with the South American States 
was held in Washington. 



1889.] Harrison's administration. 653 

The subject of celebrating Columbus's discovery of America was 
discussed, and great efforts made by citizens of New York, Chicago, 
St. Louis, and Washington, to secure from Congress an appropria- 
tion for, and the appointment of their own favorite city as the place 
in which to hold a World's Fair in 1892. The decision was in favor 
of Chicago. 

The amount of money collected by the Treasury from internal 
revenue in the year 1889 was $131,000,000; from customs, $224,- 
000,000 ; these amounts were larger than ever before collected in any 
year. 

The admirable credit of the country is evinced in the price of 
4^2 and 4% U. S. bonds which were purchased by the government 
at a rate of interest to investors of 2.16 per cent. The National 
Banking System grew in popularity. Three thousand, five hundred 
and sixty-seven National Banks were in active operation October 31, 
1890, with a capital of $660,000,000. 

The year 1890 was signalized by the admission of Idaho (Indian 
for the "Gem of the mountain") and Wyoming ("extensive flat"). 
These two new States had been territories, carved out of Oregon 
and the Dakotas. The flag had now 44 stars glistening on its blue 
field. 

The most notable act of Congress in 1890, was the passage of 
the "McKinley" bill, a Republican party measure, which raised the 
tariff on certain goods, and struck it off from other articles. While 
the final apparent effect of the act was to lessen the revenue by 
about $66,000,000, yet the increase on a single article was sufficient 
to furnish ammunition for a very active political campaign in the 
Fall, which resulted in the election of a Democratic majority to 
Congress, quite to the surprise of the ruling party. Among the 
other influences that brought about this change, was the position 
taken by Speaker Thomas B. Reed, in the House of Representatives, 
in arbitrarily cutting off debate and counting a quorum. There 
was, however, a provision in the tariff act that the President should 
be empowered to reciprocate with countries affording free trade in 
one American commodities. 

A census taken during this year, gave the population of the 
United States, including Alaska, as 62,750,000. One of the most not- 
able political developments of the year, was the strength of the 
party known as the Farmers' Alliance, which showed remarkable 
growth in the West and South, although in the year 1888 it had 
been absolutely unknown in the East. 



654 Harrison's administration. [1890-91. 

Owing to the "free coinage of silver" discussion in Congress, 
and ruinous competition among railroads in the West, there 
was almost a financial panic, and a great decline in railroad securi- 
ties. In order to check this fall in value, a meeting of railroad 
Presidents was held in New York for the formation of an associa- 
tion to regulate and equalize freight rates, and to prevent, if possible, 
the competition above mentioned. 

General William Tecumseh Sherman died in New York, Feb- 
ruary 14, 1 891. Admiral David Dixon Porter died the day pre- 
ceding in Washington. Thus two notable figures of the Civil War 
passed away together. 

The Postal Subsidy bill and the International Copyright bill were 
among the last important acts of the Fifty-first Congress, and gave 
general satisfaction. 

February 5, 1891, a Reciprocity Treaty was concluded with 
Brazil, providing for the admission free of duty of a number of 
American products and for a reduction of 25 per cent, in the 
duty on various other articles; this Treaty was the first one con- 
cluded under the Reciprocity clause of the Tariff Act of October 
1, 1890, and opened up a valuable market to American farmers and 
manufacturers. 

Among the important acts of the Fifty-first Congress were the 
Postal Subsidy bill, the International Copyright bill, a bill estab- 
lishing a Circuit Court of Appeals for the purpose of relieving the 
pressure on the United States Supreme Court, and a bill providing 
for a closer inspection of the immigrants landing on our shores, and 
creating the office of Superintendent of Immigration. All these 
measures gave general satisfaction. 

On the 14th of March, 1891, a serious event occurred in the City 
of New Orleans. The city had for a long time been terrorized by 
the acts of a number of outlaws, who were supposed to belong to 
an Italian secret society known as the Mafia. Murders, murder- 
ous assaults, and other deeds of lawlessness were perpetrated 
without discovery until the Chief of Police, David C. Hennesey, 
received sufficient evidence to inculpate several members of the 
this brave and efficient officer, and he was murdered on the night 
Mafia. These assassins determined to remove from their path 
of October 15, 1890, in front of his own door. A number of them 
were indicted, and nine were brought up for trial. Although the 
evidence against the accused appeared to warrant a verdict of 
guilty, six of them were acquitted, and the trial of the other three 



1891-93-] Harrison's administration. 655 

resulted in a disagreement of the jury. When the result was 
known there was great indignation, and it was charged that the 
jury had been influenced by bribes or threats. A public meeting 
was held in one of the squares, and attended by several thousand 
persons. After a number of violent speeches had been made, a 
mob proceeded to storm the jail where the Italians were confined, 
and an entrance was forced; nine of the imprisoned men were shot 
down in the prison-yard, and two others were dragged outside and 
hanged. 

The greatest excitement followed. Baron Fava, the Italian 
Minister at Washington, solemnly protested against the outrage, 
and made a formal demand for reparation. Correspondence en- 
sued between Mr. Blaine and Governor Nichols, of Louisiana, rela- 
tive to the affair, but was not productive of any satisfactory result. 
Baron Fava reiterated his demand for reparation, and insisted 
that Mr. Blaine should promise to have the leaders of the mob 
brought to trial, and also to pay an indemnity to the families of 
the victims. Mr. Blaine had no power under the Constitution 
to make such a promise, and the Italian Government, not appre- 
ciating the distinction between Federal and State Governments, 
became incensed at the failure of our Government to comply with 
their demands, and recalled Baron Fava on the 21st of March. For 
the remainder of the year communications between the two gov- 
ernments passed only through the Italian Charge d' Affaires. Af- 
ter much correspondence the difficulty was finally settled by the 
United States Government agreeing to pay $25,000 to the families 
of the murdered Italians. The Minister, Baron Fava, thereupon 
returned to Washington. 

The first session of the Fifty-second Congress began December 
7th. Charles F. Crisp, of Georgia, was elected Speaker of the House 
of Representatives. The Chinese Exclusion Act, and the act au- 
thorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to grant American regis- 
ters to the steamships City of New York and City of Paris, were 
the most important measures passed in this session. 

Germany removed the prohibition of the importation of Ameri- 
can hogs and hog products on September 3, 1891. Denmark 
did likewise on September 8th, Italy on October 19th, France on 
November 16th, and Austria December 9th, 1891. Reciprocity 
treaties were concluded during the year with San Domingo, Au- 
gust 1st, and Salvador, December 31st, 1891. An extradition 
treaty between France and the United States was signed at Paris 



656 Harrison's administration. [1891-93 

March 26, 1892. The Senate ratified the Behring Sea arbitration 
treaty March 29th. 

The Republican National Convention met at Minneapolis June 
7th. President Harrison was renominated, receiving 535 votes 
against 182 for Mr. Blaine. Whitelaw Reid, of New York, was 
unanimously nominated for Vice-President. The Republican plat- 
form reaffirmed the doctrine of Protection to American industries, 
and favored Federal supervision of elections. 

The Democratic National Convention assembled at Chicago 
June 2 1 st. Grover Cleveland was nominated for President, receiv- 
ing 617 votes, against 114 for Mr. Hill, and 103 for Governor 
Boies. Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, was nominated for Vice- 
President. The Democratic platform opposed high Protection, 
and declared that the Government had no constitutional power to 
impose and collect taxes, except for purposes of revenue. The plat- 
form also cast reflection on the Reciprocity policy, and denounced 
Federal supervision of elections. The issues between the two' great 
political parties were thus very clearly defined. 

The People's party, an offshoot of the Farmers' Alliance move- 
ment of two years previous, met in convention at Omaha, July 2d, 
and nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and James 
G. Field, of Virginia, for Vice-President. The platform of the Peo- 
ple's party advocated the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and 
of gold, government ownership of railways, and an income tax. 

The Prohibition party nominated John Bidwell, of California, 
for President, and James B. Cranfield, of Texas, for Vice-President. 

The foreign trade of the United States for the year ending June 
30, 1892, reached the remarkable figure of $1,859,680,270, the larg- 
est total foreign trade in any year of the history of the countrv. 

The four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America 
by Columbus was celebrated in New York City by appropriate dem- 
onstrations, from the 10th to the 14th of October. The Naval Pa- 
rade, on the nth of October, and the Military Parade, on the follow- 
ing day, were exceptionally fine. An immense number of visitors 
from all parts of the country were in the city during the celebration, 
and business was almost totally suspended. The anniversary was 
also celebrated in most of the cities of the Union. 

The campaign was carried through without excitement. The 
issues were thoroughly discussed, but all personalities regarding can- 
didates were avoided. 

The Presidential Election, November 8th, resulted in a victory 



1891-3.] 



HARRISON S ADMINISTRATION. 



657 



for the Democratic candidates, Cleveland and Stevenson, who re- 
ceived 277 votes in the Electoral College against 145 votes for the 
Republican, and 22 votes for the Populist, or People's party candi- 
dates. The popular vote was, Cleveland, 5,556,533; Harrison, 
5,175,577; Weaver, 1,122,045; Bidwell, 279,191. The State of 
Ohio, of which William McKinley, the champion of a protective tar- 
iff, was Governor, gave Harrison only a small majority. 

Reciprocity treaties were concluded during the year with Ger- 
many and England, Feb. 1, 1892, applicable as to England to British 
Guiana, Trinidad, Barbados, Tobago, Jamaica and the Leeward and 
Windward Islands, excepting the Island of Grenada ; also with Nica- 
ragua, March 12, 1892; Austria-Hungary, May 26, 1892; Spain (ap- 
plicable to Cuba and Porto Rico only), June 28, 1892. 

Ex-Secretary of State James 
G. Blaine died at Washington, 
D. C, January 27th, after a pro- 
tracted illness. The career of 
this popular statesman and pa- 
triot forms an important part of 
the history of the country, and 
the value of his services to the 
American Republic was in many 
respects notable. His brilliant and 
popular qualities never showed 
more conspicuously than in the 
adjustment of the dfficulties with 
Italy and Chile. To Mr. Blaine 
was largely due the peaceful set- 
tlement of both disputes without 
sacrifice of National honor or dignity. His death was generally re- 
gretted by all classes, and his funeral, which took place at Washington, 
January 30th, was attended by the most prominent men of the coun- 
try, irrespective of party. 

A revolution in Hawaii, January 28th, resulted in the dethrone- 
ment of Queen Liliuokalani. A provisional government was es- 
tablished under American protection. The American flag was raised 
February 1st. A treaty having for its object the permanent an- 
nexation of Hawaii to the United States was introduced into the 
United States Senate. 

On Washington's Birthday, President Harrison assisted person- 
ally in raising the American flag over the Steamship New York, 




JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE. 



658 Cleveland's administration. [189 1-3. 

thus inaugurating the new American Trans-Atlantic Line. The 
New York was the first foreign-built steamer to be admitted to Amer- 
ican registry, under the provisions of the Act of May 10, 1892. 

Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated March 4, 1893. He appointed 
the following as his advisers and members of his Cabinet: Walter 
Q. Gresham, of Illinois, Secretary of State ; John G. Carlisle, of 
Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury; Richard Olney, of Massa- 
chusetts, Attorney-General; Daniel S. Lamont, of New York, Sec- 
retary of War; Wilson S. Bissell, of New York, Postmaster-Gen- 
eral; Hillary A. Herbert, of Alabama, Secretary of the Navy; Hoke 
Smith, of Georgia, Secretary of the Interior; Julius Sterling Morton, 
of Nebraska, Secretary of Agriculture. 

The composition of the two Houses of Congress on the 4th of 
March was : Senate — Democrats, 43 ; Republicans, 39 ; People's 
party, 1 ; Farmers' Alliance, 1 ; Independent, 1 ; and three seats va- 
cant. House of Representatives — Democrats, 217; Republicans, 
128; People's party, 8, and two seats vacant. 

On March 10th, Boston was visited for the third time in its 
history by a disastrous fire, which destroyed property to the value 
of nearly $5,000,000; two persons were killed and many injured. 

Owing to serious depression in financial and business circles fol- 
lowing the great panic of 1893, President Cleveland called an extra 
session of Congress to convene August 7th to take such action as 
would tend to relieve the situation. His message to Congress was 
brief but strong in tone and won the approval of those of both parties 
who favored a sound currency. He attributed the cause of trouble 
to the over-purchase of silver (in pursuance of the act contained in 
the now famous Sherman Bill), and to its greatly depreciated value, 
and urged the repeal of that measure. 

Never in the history of the country had there been such gen- 
eral prostration and consequent suffering. Stocks fell from 50 
to 75 points in a few weeks, breadstuffs were sold at the lowest 
prices ever known, thereby causing serious loss to the farmer. Fail- 
ures were numerous in all branches. Banks, depleted of their de- 
posits and available cash, were forced to suspend ; manufacturers, 
fearing no market for their products, either curtailed their output or 
closed down entirely ; merchants, unable to secure accommodations 
at the banks, became embarrassed and were obliged to assign. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of men and women were thrown out of employ- 
ment. Apprehension and distrust seemed to pervade all sections of 
the country, and relief was hardly looked for until definite action 



1 893.] THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 659 

should be taken on the silver question, and the policy of the Admin- 
istration known as to the course it would take upon the tariff. 

The project of holding a World's Fair to commemorate the 
four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Colum- 
bus assumed definite shape when Congress, on February 25, 1890, 
selected Chicago as the place for holding the Fair, provided that 
the city should furnish a suitable site and a sum of not less than 
$10,000,000 for expenses. On April 25th the World's Columbian 
Commission was created by act of Congress. 

On December 24, 1890, President Harrison issued a proclama- 
tion, officially inviting all the nations of the earth to take part in 
the Exposition. On October 21, 1892, the Exposition grounds and 
buildings were officially dedicated by Vice-President Morton on be- 
half of President Harrison. The Exposition was opened with ap- 
propriate ceremonies May 1, 1893, to remain open until October 
30th. President Cleveland and Vice-President Stevenson, in com- 
pany with the Duke of Veragua, Columbus' lineal descendant, and 
other distinguished guests sat upon the platform erected near the 
Administration Building, and faced a multitude typically American 
in its enthusiasm and good nature. The preliminary exercises con- 
sisted of a "Columbia March" by an orchestra of six hundred mu- 
sicians under Theodore Thomas ; a prayer by the Rev. Dr. W. H. 
Milburn, the blind chaplain of the United States Senate, and the 
reading of a poem written by Mr. W. D. Crofut. The presentation 
address, by Director-General Davis, was a review of the work of 
the many departments of the management, with a word of well- 
earned praise for the activity and achievements of each. President 
Cleveland spoke briefly. "We have built," he said, "these splendid 
edifices, but we have also built the magnificent fabric of a popular 
government, whose grand proportions are seen throughout the world. 
We have made and here gathered together objects of use and 
beauty, the products of American skill and invention. We have 
also made men who rule themselves." And as he uttered a final 
sentence of invocation to future achievement and universal broth- 
erhood, he touched a golden electric key, and instantly the great 
eneine beean to revolve, the beautiful electric fountains threw 
their streams high in the air, the banners of the nations of the 
world were unfurled, a thousand steam whistles sent forth their 
clamor, the guns of the war-vessels were heard, and, with a long- 
continued shout from the multitude, the great Exposition began its 
six months' life. 



660 THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. [ l &93 

The opening of the Fair was preceded by a grand naval review, 
held at New York April 27th. It was the grandest review of the 
kind ever held in American waters. Thirteen American and twenty- 
two foreign vessels took part in it. The fleet of twenty-two for- 
eign war-ships consisted of four British, three Russian, three French, 
two Italian, three Spanish, two German, three Brazilian, one Dutch 
and one Chilian. The entire fleet, American and foreign, was 
under the command of Rear-Admiral Gherardi, and was reviewed 
by President Cleveland, who was accompanied by his entire Cab- 
inet and by the Diplomatic Corps, on the official yacht Dolphin. 
An appropriation of $300,000 was made by Congress for the pur- 
pose of meeting the expenses of the review. On the day follow- 
ing, the officers and marines from the different vessels, escorted 
by the National Guard of New York and Brooklyn, paraded in pro- 
cession through the streets of the city, and it was a pageant never 
to be forgotten by those who witnessed it, affording opportunity, 
as it did, to contrast the personnel of the different nations as rep- 
resented by these sunburnt and dark-hued sons. It was estimated 
that there were at least 12,000 men in line. 

The expenditure for the construction of buildings and for the 
general and operating expenses of the Fair amounted to $25,500,- 
000 in round numbers. The site selected was Jackson Park, and, 
with Midway Plaisance, covered an area of about 660 acres 
of ground. Jackson Park has a frontage of nearly one mile 
and a half on Lake Michigan, the second largest of the great 
lakes. The total appropriation made by the United States Gov- 
ernment and by the governments of the different States and Terri- 
tories was : 

United States Government . . . $1,500,000 
States and Territories .... 3,876,000 

Congress, by an act approved August 5, 1892, provided for the 
coinage of 5,000,000 memorial half-dollars in aid of the World's 
Fair. The total appropriations by foreign countries were $5,400,000. 
Nearly all the nations of the globe and their colonies participated. 

The total receipts, 1893, were $28,151,168.75. The balance sheet 
presented in the final report showed a profit of $1,850,000. 

The World's Congress Auxiliary in connection with the World's 
Fair had for its object the discussion of all subjects affecting the 
well-being of the human race, and the subjects which it dealt 
with were divided under seventeen different headings, to wit: Art, 
Commerce, Finance, Education, Engineering, Government, Labor, 



1894] HARD TIMES. 66 1 

Literature, Medicine, Moral and Social Reform, Music, Public 
Press, Religion, Science and Philosophy, Temperance, Sunday Rest, 
Woman's Progress. The meetings of the Congress were held in 
the permanent Memorial Art Building, located on the shore of Lake 
Michigan in the heart of the city of Chicago. Noted men from 
all countries took part in the meetings of the Congress, and the 
many vexed questions, social, moral, political and economic, the 
solution of which puzzles the wisest men, were discussed and de- 
bated on by the ablest writers and thinkers of the age. The city 
of Chicago itself, the second city of the Union, would have been, to 
many visitors, a great attraction even without the World's Fair. 

Later years brought the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, 
and the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905, which to many revived 
memories of the Columbian celebration of ten years earlier. 

In 1894 hard times began to manifest themselves throughout 
the country, and much uneasiness was felt by all classes. Money 
became scarce, and, first in one city and then in another, came cur- 
rency famines and currency panics. The excitement took political 
form and began to affect the old parties. There had been a long- 
continued and steady fall in the price of silver, and this to many peo- 
ple had brought about the unhealthful state of trade and commerce 
which prevailed. In both the Republican and Democratic parties 
prominent men advocated the enactment of laws for the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver at the rate of 16 to 1 as compared with 
gold, while at the very opposite extreme other leaders urged with 
equal power the establishment of the national finances upon a purely 
gold basis. 

The banking and mercantile world became deeply interested in 
these matters, and began to take an active part on behalf of a cur- 
rency based exclusively on gold. The conflict which began in this 
manner grew fiercer as the weeks rolled by, and became a para- 
mount issue in the elections of both 1896 and 1900. Commercial 
disturbances were increased by tariff legislation at Washington. 
President Grover Cleveland represented a political school which 
favored a reduction in the tariff or a tariff for revenue only. His 
views were accepted by the Democratic party, and were expressed 
in what is known as the Wilson Tariff Bill, passed in the session of 
Congress (1893- 1894), becoming law in August, 1894. 



66.2 Cleveland's administration. [1S94. 

All tariff changes are accompanied by more or less disturbance, 
but in time trade forces usually adjust themselves to new con- 
ditions, and in the case of the Wilson Tariff Bill the country might 
in due course have grown accustomed to its provisions. Coming, 
however, at a time when the financial and political world was dis- 
turbed if not convulsed by monetary issues, it served to increase the 
discontent and to foment the bitterness of political feeling. Matters 
were made worse by the steady flow of gold from this country 
abroad. A world's crisis seemed to be on hand, and the great 
European powers made what seemed to be special efforts to increase 
their stock of the precious yellow metal at the expense of the 
United States. So rapid was the drain that the United States 
Treasury was obliged to issue bonds to the amount of $100,000,000 
to provide sufficient funds to meet its obligations. 

The first practical evidence of the political unrest occurred in 
the fall elections, when in New York City William L. Strong was 
elected mayor, being the first Republican in that office for thirty 
years. In Brooklyn a powerful Democratic ring was overthrown, 
while the State at large went overwhelmingly Republican, electing 
Levi P. Morton Governor, and defeating Senator David Bennett 
Hill, who was the Democratic candidate. 

Of special importance, at this election, was the approval by the 
voters of the extension of New York City to include Brooklyn, Rich- 
mond, Queens, and Bronx boroughs, making it the second largest 
city of the world. 

This political movement swept the entire country. In the 
Fifty-third Congress there had been 219 Democrats, 127 Repub- 
licans, and 10 Populists. In the Fifty-fourth Congress, which was 
elected in 1894, there were 104 Democrats, 244 Republicans, and 
7 Populists. The relation of the two great parties had been reversed 
by the people, a circumstance which tended to augment the discus- 
sions going on. 

While the elections set the seal of public disapproval upon the 
changes which had been made in the tariff, they did not allay the 
excitement incident to the currency question. This increased in 
all parts of the land. People now began to quote the astonishing 
declaration of Governor Waite, of Colorado, "that the people of 
his State would ride in blood to their horses' bridles rather than 
submit to the dictation of Wall Street on the silver question." 

So frequently was the figure quoted that it gave rise to a new 
soubriquet to that official, who became known as " Bloody Bridles 



1895-] THE VENEZUELA INCIDENT. 66$ 

Waite." Another phrase struck out in the heat of the controversy 
was " Gold Bug," based upon Poe's famous story by that name. 
It caught the popular fancy and was adopted both by the foes and 
friends of gold coinage, the latter wearing gilded beetles in their 
coat lapels as an insignia of their financial belief. 

The following year (1895) continued the conditions of 1894. 
While trade in general improved perceptibly, there was still great 
suffering throughout the country and in the agricultural districts ; 
there was universal complaint in regard to prices, railway charges, 
and political conditions. As a change in the tariff was now immi- 
nent, the mercantile world was uneasy, not knowing what course 
Congress would take. There was a general atmosphere of unrest, 
which was utilized by political leaders to concentrate attention and 
discussion on the silver question. 

In December occurred what is known as the Venezuela incident — 
an event which, at the time, threatened to plunge the country into 
«>ne of the great wars of history. There had been for a long period 
differences between the governments of Venezuela and Great Britain 
respecting the boundary line of the former republic and British 
Guiana. The disparity in power between the two countries made 
the South American commonwealth feel that its cause was hopeless. 
It therefore appealed to the United States for intervention or the 
exercise of its friendly offices under the policy known as the Monroe 
Doctrine, which pledges the United States to oppose any encroach- 
ment by a European power upon the territories of North and 
South America. 

The cabinet at Washington suggested arbitration to the British 
foreign office as early as February, 1895. Lord Salisbury, who was 
then Prime Minister, pursued a dilatory policy in replying until 
November of that year, when he sent a polite refusal to entertain 
the proposition. President Cleveland thereupon transmitted a spe- 
cial message to Congress urging the appointment of an ex-parte Com- 
mission, which should investigate the matter and report upon the 
facts and merits of the case. His message was so direct and free 
from diplomatic conventionality that it startled the civilized world. 
Statesmen of the old school considered it as tantamount to a declara- 
tion of war, and every bourse in the new and old world was disturbed 
by the announcement. The effect was greatest in Wall Street and 
Lombard Street, where prices fell in every direction, and many fail- 
ures were the consequence. 

The action of the President brought to light many things which 



664 Cleveland's administration. [1895. 

had been suspected but not clearly noticed before. The European 
press took the matter up with a savage joy, which showed that 
Great Britain had no friends among the Great Powers. In the 
United States there was an outburst of delight from the classes 
known as Anglophobes, of whom the most conspicuous were Irish 
citizens, who were members of the organization known as " The Land 
League." The action of Congress showed that Cleveland had 
gauged American beliefs with great accuracy. Congress unani- 
mously passed a bill authorizing the appointment of the commission, 
and appropriating enough money to enable it to perform its work 
in a manner worthy of the gravity of the occasion. It was evident 
to everybody that the Monroe Doctrine represented the belief of 
the entire American people, and that in the support of that doc- 
trine they were willing, if need be, to appeal to the sword with the 
strongest sea power on the globe. 

During this year the revolutionary forces in Cuba made note- 
worthy headway ; the insurgents became masters of large tracts of 
territory, and compelled the Spaniards to establish a complicated 
system of garrisons, blockhouses, and barbed wire fences in many of 
the more important districts of the island. The sympathies of 
North and South America were freely extended to the islanders 
who were struggling for liberty, and a steady stream of money, 
arms, and munitions of war from both continents enabled the patriots 
to keep up the unequal contest and to make more formidable move- 
ments than ever before. This struggle had many curious features. 

The Cubans had a moving capital, which traveled from place 
to place with their armies upon their native soil. They had a 
permanent capital in Beaver Street, New York City, where the 
Junta, or Provisional Government, held continuous session. The 
Spanish Government had a system of espionage, and their spies 
were in turn watched by Cuban spies. In this way Beaver Street 
for several years was the center of a drama which descended into 
farce and often rose into tragedy. 

Whenever a vessel was to be dispatched for Cuba with arms for 
the insurgents, the Junta would make a great ado about the matter, 
and would hire different vessels along the coast to pretend to engage 
upon the trip. These would be immediately put under surveillance 
by the Spaniards, who would invoke the courts against the supposed 
fillibusters, and even prevail upon the State department to inter- 
fere in the proceedings. In the meantime, the real smuggler would 
set sail from some out-of-the-way place, and before the deception 



1896.] PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1 896. 665 

was discovered the arms would be landed in Santiago or Puerto 
Principe. 

On one occasion, a cargo of rifles sent to the insurgents was con- 
cealed in rough logs which had been hollowed for the purpose. 
The thing was done so boldly that the Spanish officials, who passed 
the cargo when it reached Cuban waters, never knew of the decep- 
tion until two years afterwards. A hundred revolvers were con- 
veyed to the insurgents upon a steamer which stopped at several 
ports occupied by Spanish garrisons. They were dipped in heavy 
fats in New York, placed in two bags, to each of which was attached 
a long, strong cord which terminated in a wooden float, and were 
thrown overboard at a point agreed upon by the New York Junta 
and their friends at home. One bag remained in the water for 
several days, but, thanks to the preliminary treatment, every weapon 
was found to be in perfect order when rescued from the deep. 

The year 1896 will be remembered as one of the great political 
contests in American history. Opinion respecting monetary matters 
had begun to crystallize in every State. The eastern and central 
communities were shaping their courses by the star of the yellow 
metal, while those of the South and West followed its white rival. 
Political campaigning was begun early in the year, and the ma- 
chinery of the parties began operations in the spring. The Repub- 
licans met in National Convention on June 18, in St. Louis, and 
nominated William McKinley of Ohio for President, and Garret A. 
Hobart of New Jersey for Vice-President. 

There was a fight in the party councils respecting the attitudes 
to be observed in regard to the monetary issue. Some of the lead- 
ers favored an outspoken declaration in favor of gold monometallism ; 
others, of weaker nature, a compromise in the matter, or a declaration 
for gold with a recognition of silver. Not a few in the convention 
were strong silverites, and a considerable body advocated the policy 
of laissez faire. With so many conflicting views, there was a strug- 
gle, in which considerable feeling was displayed between the East 
and the West. The final outcome was a platform which declared for 
a gold standard, a protective tariff, and resolutions of sympathy for 
the Cuban revolutionaries. 

On July 10 the Democrats held their National Convention at 
Chicago, and nominated William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska for 
President, and Arthur Sewall of Maine for Vice-President. Here 
there was a similar struggle, but the forces of silver were so strong 
that they swept all opposition before them. Bryan's nomination 



;66 



Cleveland's administration. [1890. 



was a surprise, and seems to have been the result of a picturesque 
oration which he delivered, and which won the hearts of all who 
heard it. In this address he used several striking rhetorical figures 
which culminated in a skillful scriptural parody, wherein he referred 
to labor as being crowned with a crown of thorns and crucified on 
a cross of gold. 

The platform represented many elements. Its chief plank was 
in favor of the " free and unlimited coinage of silver." Other planks 
opposed the protective tariff, urged an income tax, advocated the 
restriction of immigration, denounced the Supreme Couit, and advo- 
cated the abolition of the National banks. 

The People's party met in National Convention July 24, and 
nominated Bryan for President and Thomas Watson of Georgia for 
Vice-President. At the same time an organization calling itself the 
Bimetallists, or Silverites, held a National Convention at St. Louis 
and nominated Bryan and Sewall. Democrats who believed in gold 
coinage and were dissatisfied with the course events had taken, now 
organized and held a National Convention at Indianapolis, Septem- 
ber 3, nominating General John M. Palmer of Illinois for Presi- 
dent, and General Simon Buckner of Kentucky for Vice-President. 

The campaign was conducted more like a great war than a simple 
electioneering affair. The land was flooded with orators and the 
mails with partisan literature. Every known advertising device was 
called into use by political managers, and toward election day pro- 
cessions, serenades, jubilees, and parades were universal. The most 
romantic feature of the campaign was the meteoric course of the 
Democratic candidate, Bryan. Like a general, he seemed to live 
in his boots. He delivered more speeches during his electioneering 
than had ever been done before. He traveled more miles, spoke 
to more people, and performed more work, than had ever been 
known under similar circumstances. His extraordinary endurance 
and grim determination won the admiration of his foes, but not 
their votes. 

The result of the election was a more sweeping victory for 
McKinley than had been won by any presidential candidate for 
many years. His plurality was over 600,000, and in the electoral 
college he had 271 votes to 176 for Bryan. 

William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United 
States, was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 20, 
1843. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, the family having origin. illy 
gome from Scotland and settled in northern Ireland. Educated in 



i8 9 6.] 



ELECTION OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. 



667 



was admitted to the bar, and in 1869 elected Prosecuting Attorney 
of Stark County. In 1876 he was elected to Congress, where he 
served his constituents for fourteen years. 

He was elected Governor in 1891, and two years afterward was 
re-elected by a plurality of 80,000. In 1892 he was a delegate-at- 
large from Ohio pledged to support the renomination of Benjamin 
Harrison. Chairman of the convention, he had it under complete 
control. There was a strong feeling against the renomination of 
the Ex-President, and a majority of the delegates were in favor of 







WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

McKinley. They entreated him to permit his name to be used as 
a candidate, but, to his credit, he declined, stating that his own 
honor was greater than that of the presidential nomination. Never- 
theless, 182 votes were cast for him for President. 

No man brought to the presidential chair better intentions or a 
sweeter disposiion. Senator Hanna styled him "Prosperity's Ad- 
vance Agent," and the epigrammatic nickname stuck to him ever 
after. 

With the election of McKinley came a revival of business pros- 
perity which' lasted for many years. Exports, which in 1896 had 
been $882,000,000, leaped to $1,050,000,000, the largest amount in 
the history of the American trade. Imports fell from $779,000,000 to 
$764,000,000. The exports of gold and silver fell from $148,000,000 
to $102,000,000, while their imports rose from $80,000,000 to $t 1 5,- 
000,000. The total commerce, including the precious metals, rose 



66$> Mckinley's administration. [1897. 

from $1,889,000,000 to $2,031,000,000. Similar advances were 
recorded in the production of coal, iron, steel, copper, and manu- 
factured goods. Business failures decreased in number, while the 
amounts of money expended in charitable and philanthropic work 
showed a handsome increase. There was a decline in immigration 
from Europe, but an increase from Canada and Mexico. Notable 
activity occurred in the mining-camps, and excitement was created 
by the confirmation of reports respecting enormous deposits of gold 
in the Klondike territory and Alaska. 

The latter brought a stream of fortune-seekers from all parts of 
the world, and besides developing the Arctic districts mentioned, 
aided materially the prosperity of the new State of Washington, and 
more especially the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. To a smaller ex- 
tent, the scenes in California in 1849 were repeated in Alaska in 
1897. The Klondike discovery was to be followed by similar and 
perhaps more important consequences. Among its immediate results 
were the exploration and mapping of what had largely been an un- 
known territory, the changing of a Polar wilderness into a civilized 
community, a notable development of the steamship industry on the 
Pacific coast, and a steadily growing demand for mining machinery 
and supplies. 

The Klondike discovery did not affect the nation as did its Cali- 
fornia counterpart. The latter showed the country to possess gold- 
mines and made it independent of the rest of the world in regard to 
the yellow metal; but as this had been discovered in large quantities 
in eleven States and Territories between 1849 an d l< &97> the Klon- 
dike revelation simply added to what was already a vast industry. 
Its chief importance was the practical answer which it made to the 
political argument that the supply of gold was growing smaller 
each year. 

While the output of gold from the new fields was not so large as 
had been predicted by sanguine prospectors, it nevertheless was suf- 
ficient to raise the output of the precious metal in North America 
to a noteworthy extent. Beyond this, it induced the movement of 
capital from the East to the extreme West, and to an exploitation 
of Washington and Oregon of the greatest benefit to those two com- 
monwealths. The effect was not ephemeral ; it has grown steadily 
ever since, and promises to make the States in question very power- 
ful communities in the Republic. 

The experiences of the Klondike explorers in this year make a 
romance stranger than any novel. To carry their outfits from the 



1897J Mckinley's administration. 669 

sea over the frozen ravines and mountains which fringe the Alaskan 
coast demanded strength and endurance of the heroic type. The cold 
at times was so terrible that mercury became a solid white metal 
like silver, and whisky and brandy solidified into golden crystals. 
Eskimo dogs were converted into draught animals for mining pur- 
poses, and would-be miners in temperate zones were soon compelled 
by necessity to adopt the diet of the Samoyed. They found that 
with the thermometer below zero tallow candles were good eating 
and raw lard a delicious dish. One man at Dawson City lived a 
week upon the suet he had brought with him to grease his boots, 
and another adventurer who had started a small grocery store used 
for his breakfast blocks of olive-oil which had been frozen solid. 

Yet the awful suffering affected men in an unexpected way. 
Where the mining-camps in warmer countries had always been noted 
for lawlessness and disorder, these in the land of perpetual winter 
were remarkably quiet and well-behaved. The number of crimes 
were only a small fraction of what they were in the early mining 
days of California. 

The year 1897 was also memorable for the consolidation of New 
York and its neighborhood into an imperial city. The new metropolis 
contained 306 square miles, with a population of 3,500,000, mak- 
ing it the second largest city in numbers and the first in wealth 
upon the globe. The city grew rapidly thereafter. In 191 4 the 
population was estimated at 5,300,000. At the first election, Robert 
A. Van Wyck was made mayor of the Greater City for a term of 
four years. 

The most important political action of the year was the repeal 
of the Wilson Tariff Bill, which was said to be for revenue only, and 
the passage of the Dingley Protective Tariff. The latter measure 
encountered almost no opposition, many of the Democratic members 
of Congress approving of the provisions, while others, who objected 
to certain of these, preferred them to the existing laws on the subject. 

The rebellion in Cuba continued with unabated strength. The 
insurgent forces carried on the war upon a Fabian basis, and seldom 
gave battle to the Spanish army. They kept up a guerilla combat, 
which tried the patience of their foes in every conceivable way. 

In this year it is estimated that the population of the island fell 
off at least 150,000. In addition to their appeal for liberty, the 
Cubans now made an appeal for bread. So terrible were their suf- 
ferings that charitable movements were organized in the United 
States which established agencies in Cuba for the alleviation of the 



67O THE CUBAN REBELLION. \. l &97 

distress. In May, 1897, Congress appropriated $50,000 to be ex- 
pended by American consuls in Cuba for the relief of starving Amer- 
ican citizens upon that island. In many of the cities fairs were 
held for the benefit of the Cuban poor, irrespective of the struggle, 
and similar action was taken in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, and 
Venezuela. 

Before the Cuban rebellion large amounts of American capital 
had been invested in that island. There had grown up a wealthy 
Cuban-American population, which formed a connecting tie between 
Havana and the great cities of the Union. The war ruined these 
investments and reduced many of their owners to absolute poverty. 
It was estimated that the injury to American property alone on the 
island under the reconcentrado system was $10,000,000, and to 
Cuban property $500,000,000. There were other losses upon as 
great a scale. Trade, which had been large and profitable, dwindled 
down to almost nothing. The sugar crop fell from $70,000,000 to 
$14,000,000; tobacco, from $15,000,000 to $3,000,000; and the cat- 
tle industry had vanished. Cuban exports to the United States 
dropped from $75,000,000 to $1,000,000, while American exports 
to Cuba diminished from $30,000,000 to $7,000,000. 

These causes acting together aroused a universal desire on the 
part of the American nation to intervene and either compel Spain 
to make Cuba independent or else grant it autonomy under which 
there would be an end to the iniquitous system of government. Cu- 
ban-American leagues were formed through all parts of the nation, 
and general sentiment was reflected in the press, of which at least 
ninety-five per cent, was in favor of Cuba Libre. In the latter part 
of the year the Spanish Government became alarmed at the attitude 
not only of the United States but of the civilized world. In every 
capital there was a note of discontent and a feeling that America 
should and would interfere in the matter. 

The Spanish diplomats did their best to offset the feeling, but 
with poor success. The Spanish politicians, either through igno- 
rance or arrogance, made capital by denouncing the "American 
hog," as they called the people of the Republic, and their papers 
took delight in lampooning, vilifying, and caricaturing everything 
American. That they saw the possibility, if not probability, of war 
with the United States was evident from the beginning of 1897, a * 
which time the Spanish press began a course of articles demon- 
strating, to their own satisfaction, that the American army was a 
paper creation, its navy worthless, and its people so bound up in the 



i Sq8. 1 Mckinley's admistration. 671 

worship of tli2 ' almighty dollar" as to possess neither courage, 
martial skill, no' knowledge. 

One Madrid newspaper published a delicious plan of campaign 
by which a Spanish army was to enter the United States on the 
southern coast via Havana and to capture every city from New 
Orleans to New York. The attitude of both Spanish press and 
people would have been pitiable had it not been so ridiculous. 

In December, 1897, there was a lull in the storm. The Span- 
ish Government granted a quasi-autonomy to Cuba, which apparently 
pacified many hostile elements. The war sentiment in the United 
States died down, and the excitement in Spain decreased notably. 
In honor of the better feeling the navy department of each nation 
sent one of its best warships to make a friendly visit upon the other. 
From Spain the cruiser Vizcaya came to New York as an official 
visitor, while on January 25 the U. S. battleship Maine entered 
the harbor of Havana upon a similar mission. The officers and 
authorities exchanged calls, and in the mess-room of the Maine 
toasts were drunk in the hope of continued peace and friendship 
between the two nations. But somewhere there was deep hatred of 
the United States, and there were men, whose identity has never 
been proved, wicked enough to express that hatred in one of the 
most dastardly crimes in the history of civilization. On the night 
of February 15, 1898, the Maine was blown up while at anchor 
in Havana harbor, and while nearly all the officers and crew were 
asleep on board. Two officers and two hundred and sixty-four 
members of the crew lost their lives by the explosion. 

The horror of the event produced a shock throughout the Old 
World and the New. Nearly every European government sent mes- 
sages of sympathy, and the Spanish Government went out of its 
way to signify its condolence and regret. From every part of the 
United States came a cry for vengeance, and on the following day 
a clever newspaper man in New York coined the slogan," Remem- 
ber the Maine!" which in ninety-six hours was taken up by every 
city, town, and hamlet in the Union. 

The American Government acted with great calmness, appoint- 
ing a court of inquiry to investigate and report upon the catas- 
trophe. The Spanish Government appointed a similar board, and the 
two tribunals set to work with a seriousness befitting the occasion. 

While the court of inquiry was at work, both governments saw 
the gravity of the situation and commenced to make preparation:; 
for the impending conflict. Spain began to send warships to Cuba, 



672 BLOWING UP THE MAINE. [1898. 

via the Canary Islands, and to move troops from the interior to the 
coast ports. The United States pursued similar tactics, concen- 
trating the North Atlantic Squadron at the Dry Tortugas and ship- 
ping men by rail from the western and central posts to the Atlantic 
seaports. Both nations instructed their agents in other lands to 
purchase warships, guns, and ammunition. 

Here America had the advantage on account of its wealth and 
unlimited credit. At all the navy-yards extra gangs of men were 
set to work, and in several there were night shifts, making the labor 
continuous. Early in March Congress appropriated $50,000,000 
for the national defense. It is worthy of note that in the House of 
Representatives there was not one vote in the negative, while in the 
Senate, of the seventy-six Senators present every one voted aye. 
This unanimity should be registered in red letters in the history of 
the nation. . 

The report of the court of inquiry was presented to Congress 
on March 28, and after reviewing the evidence, submitted the 
significant conclusion, among others, that the disaster was occa- 
sioned by the explosion of a mine under the ship on the port side. 
As the only mines in the harbor were those belonging to the Spanish 
Government, and controlled by Spanish officers in the garrison of that 
city, the report was practically an indictment of Spain, charging it 
with the commission of the offense, but not specifying whether it 
was deliberate or accidental. 

The report was transmitted to Congress by President McKinley 
with a brief message. This state document surprised the world by 
its conservatism and judicial tone. It displeased the Jingoes of the 
country, whose wrath was now turned against the Executive. He 
was abused by several hundred newspapers for pusillanimity and a 
peace-at-any-price policy. This was followed by a demand upon 
the Spanish Government for reparation for the loss of the Maine, and 
also for an armistice in Cuba. Spain promptly refused to give either 
indemnity or apology for the loss of the Maine, and employed diplo- 
matic dilatory tactics in regard to Cuba. 

Instructions were now sent to all consuls and consular agents in 
Cuba to join Consul-General Fitz-Hugh Lee in Havana. This was 
but one step from war, and both countries looked forward to imme- 
diate hostilities. In the meantime the Spanish Government had 
begun to realize the danger which threatened their country. They 
were convinced now that the United States would fight, and they 
were half convinced that an appeal to arms would result in loss to 



1898.] Mckinley's administration. 673 

Spain. They therefore endeavored to avert the conflict of arms by. 
diplomatic means, and appealed to the Great Powers for a friendly 
intervention. 

They had every reason to believe that their endeavor would be 
successful. At least twice before in the histoiy of Cuba trouble 
had been avoided through the diplomatic offices of Europe, and the 
Madrid Cabinet were of the opinion that the same thing could be 
biought about at the present juncture. The first move looked as if 
their calculations had a firm basis. On April 8 the envoys of 
Great Britain, Fiance, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Austro- Hungary 
called upon Piesident McKinley in a body, and on behalf of their 
respective governments made a strong appeal for peace and further 
negotiations. 

President McKinley replied, acknowledging the good-will of the 
six Powers, and sharing the hope that the outcome of the situatioi 
might be the maintenance of peace. He made it clear that the 
United States intended to act irrespective of the Great Powers. 

The Spanish diplomats now endeavored to have the Powers 
make a more formidable move, but here disappointment met them 
almost at the outset. Germany refused to intervene, which of 
course meant that France would be more or less tied in the premises. 
Russia declined, which acted as a counterbalance to any intended 
action on the part of Great Britain. Austria-Hungary was insignifi- 
cant as a sea power, so that its action amounted to but little, while 
Italy, on account of its alliance with Germany, found itself more 01 
less bound by the action of the latter. They turned to the Pope, 
who, with his customary love of peace, made a fervent appeal to 
the President thiough Archbishop Ireland; but this was of no 
more avail than the other efforts. 

On April 1 1 the President sent a message to Congress, and with 
it the reports of the consuls in Cuba respecting conditions in that 
island. He asked from Congress the authority to take measures to 
secure a final termination of hostilities between Spain and Cuba, 
and to obtain in the latter the establishment of a stable govern- 
ment. On April 19, Congress passed a joint resolution demanding 
that Spain withdraw at once from Cuba, and authorizing the Presi- 
dent to use the military and naval power of the United States to 
enforce the demand. The resolution was approved by the Presi- 
dent on the following day. Diplomatic relations were at once 
broken off between the two countries, and on April 22 this country 
began actual warfare by blockading Havana and other Cuban ports. 



6/4 WAR AGAINST SPAIN. [1898. 

The American warships were organized into three squadrons. 
The first, or Patrol Squadron, under the command of Commodore 
J. A. Howell, was established to protect the seaports of the North 
Atlantic coast. The second, or Flying Squadron, under command 
of Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, was designed to protect the 
middle coast and to reinforce either the first or third squadron in 
the event of an emergency. It consisted of the armored cruiser 
Brooklyn, the battleships Massachusetts and Texas, and the cruisers 
Minneapolis and Columbia. The third, or Blockading Squadron, 
under command of Acting Rear-Admiral W. T. Sampson, consisted 
of the armored cruiser New York, the battleships Iowa and Indiana, 
the cruisers Montgomery, Marblehead, Cincinnati, and Detroit, the 
torpedo boats Porter, Winslow, Cushing, Dupont, Ericsson, and 
Foote, the gunboats Nashville, Castine, Wilmington, and Newport, 
and four monitors, Puritan, Miantonomah, Terror, and Amphitrite. 
In addition to these three squadrons the United States had a 
squadron of six ships at Hong Kong under Commodore Dewey, 
and a large number ready or almost ready for service at various 
ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 

The Navy Department, under Secretary Long, displayed great 
energy in purchasing men-of-war and steamships, which it converted 
into cruisers. The work went on night and day, and resulted in 
the formation of a new navy, which rendered signal service during 
the conflict. These "converted cruisers," as they were called, 
ranged from large steamers of the greyhound class down to the 
swift steam-yachts of the New York Yacht Club. 

On Sunday, April 24, Spain formally declared war. On April 23 
the President called for 125,000 volunteers. The call met with 
an immediate response in every part of the country. The quota 
was filled in a few days, the number of those volunteering being 
twice that called for by the proclamation. The war which now 
followed was one of the most remarkable in history. Although 
it involved two great naval battles and many land engagements 
in the West Indies and in the Far East between two first-class 
Powers, it lasted but three months and twenty days, and resulted 
in the complete crushing of the Spanish arms, both on sea and 
land. 

The first great chapter in the struggle took place in the Far 
East. Commodore Dewey had been waiting for orders from home, 
which came in the form of a telegraphic message as follows: 



1898.] Mckinley's administration. 675 

"Washington, Sunday, April 24, 1898. 
"Dewey, Hong Kong: War has commenced between the 
United States and Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. 
Commence operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. 
You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors. 

" LONG " [Secretary of the Navy]. 

On Monday Dewey left Hong Kong harbor and sailed to Mirs 
Bay, a deep arm of the sea which runs far into the China coast. 
Here his ships made ready for battle, and on Wednesday he set sail 
for Luzon. On Friday a blue cloud rose up on the horizon, which 
every sailor knew to be the land of the enemy. At daylight on 
Saturday morning they were alongside of the coast, and the ships 
Boston and Concord were sent to look into Subig Bay, where, 
according to information received by the commander, the Spanish 
fleet had contemplated making a rendezvous. The two ships went 
joyously on their mission, earnestly hoping that they would meet 
some Spanish man-of-war in that beautiful harbor. They had a 
delightful excursion and admired the wonderful landscape around 
the harbor, but they were looking for Spanish warships, and not 
landscapes, and returned promptly the moment they found that 
Subig Bay was deserted. 

A council of war was held, in pursuance of which the squadron 
moved slowly down the coast, entered Manila harbor at eight 
o'clock in the evening, and steamed leisurely from Boca Grande, the 
entrance, across the great bay, until they were near to Cavite and 
Manila. The last ship had passed the entrance when the Spaniards 
seemed to notice the danger. A rocket rose high in air, a heavy 
gun boomed, and a shell went screaming over the Raleigh. A 
second shot followed, and then came an answering roar of heavy 
guns from the Raleigh, Concord, and Boston, and a rain of shells fell 
upon the place from which the Spaniards had fired. 

There was no response, and silence reigned until dawn. Then 
the east suddenly changed to rose pink and blood red, as if to sym- 
bolize the day which was being born. Night changes to dawn 
quickly in the tropics, and in fifteen minutes what had been a star- 
lit picture in blacks and grays was now a panorama in brilliant colors 
of the Spanish city on the mainland and the great harbor filled with 
ships of all nations. Over toward Cavite lay the Spanish squadron, 
magnified in the morning air into an ominous armada. Signal flags 
rose and fell, smoke poured from every funnel, and the American 



6/6 



THE BATTLE OF MANILA. 



[1898. 



squadron got under way and steamed in a curving line toward 
Manila and thence rounding toward the foe. There came a puff of 
smoke from the far-off shore as the Spanish batteries at Manila 
opened fire. They were five miles away, but their high-power guns 




threw shot and shell across the long reach of water and above the 
masts of the American fleet The Concord acknowledged the com- 
pliment by two shells, which burst in the Luzon capital, and then 
Stopped firing, lest it should injure non-combatants in the city 



1898.] Mckinley's administration. C77 

Now Cavite, a low-lying peninsula, rose up above the water's 
edge, and thousands of black spots, moving here and there, showed 
that the garrison was making ready to repel the invader. Flags were 
hoisted on the Spanish ships and fluttered in the morning sun. A 
torpedo exploded on the right and a mine on the left, a third and a 
fourth went off, but without injury to the Americans. Then the 
Cavite batteries opened fire, and shot and shell began to plunge about 
the approaching ships. At forty-one minutes past five the Ameri- 
can opened fire in earnest. As the report of the first gun died away 
there came a hoarse shout, "Remember the Maine!" which ran from 
ship to ship, from fighting-top to engine-room, and then died away 
in the thunder of the guns. On swept the squadron, firing with 
ever-increasing accuracy, and now the Spanish answer began to grow 
fainter and slighter. At twenty minutes past six two torpedo launches 
came out from Cavite harbor to attack the Olympia. The next second 
the first was struck by a shell and sent bubbling beneath the water, 
and the next, a second one was struck, turned, and reached the beach 
just in time to go down without drowning its crew. At seven o'clock 
the Spanish flagship, the Reina Christina, commanded by Admiral 
Montojo, came forward from beneath the guns of the fort to break 
lances with the American squadron. It was magnificent courage but 
a martial crime. The guns were quickly silenced and the iron walls 
honeycombed with missiles. Tongues of flame appeared at the ports, 
and then the doomed ship turned and went back to her anchorage 
to fight the fires which were consuming her vitals. 

At thirty minutes after seven signal flags ordered firing to cease 
and the warships to withdraw for breakfast. The event was without 
precedent in the history of naval warfare. It displayed a serenity in 
the mind of the commander which was fairly jovial in character. 
When the signal flags were read the crews laughed and cheered, but 
a few in whom the war blood was boiling cursed and vowed that they 
would not eat until they had finished the job. At eleven o'clock the 
flags again rose upon the commander's ship, and sixteen minutes 
afterwards the attack was resumed. At thirty minutes after twelve 
the task was complete, and the order of Secretary Long had been 
obeyed to the letter. The Spanish fleet was destroyed and captured. 

Of the Spanish fleet, the flagship Reina Christina, the Castillo, 
and Don Antonio de Ulloa were sunk, the Don J nan de Austria, 
the Isla de Luzon, the Isla de Cuba, the General Lezo, the Marquis 
del Duero, M. El Corrco, Velasco, and Isla de Mindanao were 
burned, and the Rapid 0, Hercules, and several smaller crafts were 



678 m'kinley's administration. [1898 

captured. Twelve hundred Spaniards were killed or wounded, while 
on die American side none was killed and only seven in the squadron 
were wounded, and that very slightly. 

The ships of the American squadron were the Olympia, Capt. 
Charles V. Gridley; the Raleigh, Capt. J. B. Coglan; the Boston, 
Capt. Frank Wilds; the Baltimore, Capt. Nehemiah M. Dyer; the 
Concord, Commander Asa Walker ; the Petrel, Commander Edward 
P. Wood; and the McCulloch, Capt. Albon C. Hodgson. The vic- 
tory startled the world. The odds were against the Americans. The 
Spanish tonnage was sixteen thousand ; the American, nineteen thou- 
sand. The Spaniards had 169 guns and 2,200 officers and crew; the 
Americans, 128 guns and 1,700 men. The Spaniards were on the 
defensive. They had powerful batteries at Corregidor, Cavite, Ma- 
late, Manila, and Binondo, and their harbor was supposed to be 
thoroughly protected by electric and automatic torpedoes and mines. 
It was a thunderbolt to such naval circles as had published opinions 
upon the subject to the effect that it would be impossible for the 
Americans to attack and capture the Spanish fleet at Manila. 

When the news reached Spain the excitement was so great that 
Madrid and other cities were put under martial law. The Spanish 
Government ordered Admiral Cervera to proceed with his fleet from 
the Cape Verde Islands to Cuba, and issued orders to prepare a new 
fleet under Admiral Camara, who was to take it through the Suez 
Canal out to Manila and there regain that important city. 

In the meantime, the blockade of Cuba grew stronger and more 
efficient.. Every day witnessed the capture of a prize, and occasional 
engagements occurred between the American ships and the shore 
batteries. These engagements were notable for the accurate shoot- 
ing of the Americans and the miserable marksmanship of the Span- 
iards. On April 2j Rear-Admiral Sampson bombarded the land 
batteries at Matanzas. In this engagement, although there were 
three large warships in full view and range of the Spanish ports, not 
one shot touched an American vessel. May 2 will be remembered 
by the death of that gallant young naval officer, Ensign Worth 
Bagley. He was executive of the torpedo boat Winslow, and was 
making a reconnaissance of Cardenas harbor when some concealed 
batteries opened fire upon his boat. The JVinslou was crippled, 
and while being rescued by the revenue cutter Hudson, a Spanish 
shell killed Bagley and two others and mortally wounded two of the 
crew. 

On April 29 Admiral Cervera set sail from the Cape Verde 



1898.] hobson's heroic feat. 679 

Islands. His squadron comprised the best warships of the Spanish 
navy and included the armored cruisers Infanta Maria Teresa, 
Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, Cristobal Colon, and three torpedo- 
boat destroyers, the Furor, Terror, and Pluton. They reached 
Martinique on May 11, and proceeded to Curasao, hoping to meet 
some colliers there which had been sent on ahead of them. They 
obtained coal and provisions and went to Santiago, reaching that 
port on May 19. The Americans had not been idle watching for 
the approach of this formidable squadron. Patrol ships scoured the 
waters of the Caribbean and the Atlantic, and American agents were 
waiting in every port to transmit news by cable of the approach of 
the Spanish warships. From a strategic point of view Cervera should 
have gone to Cienfuegos or Havana, as Santiago was a place of no 
great military or naval importance. 

The Flying Squadron arrived off Santiago on May 26, but had 
no suspicion that Cervera was within the port. Commodore Schley 
was about to start for Key West, when he received dispatches order- 
ing him to remain at Santiago. Three days later he made a recon- 
naissance and saw two of the Spanish warships in the harbor beyond 
the Morro Castle. He then cabled the Navy Department the famous 
dispatch that he had "the Spanish ships bottled up, and they'll never 
get home." The same day Rear- Admiral Sampson arrived upon the 
scene with the advance detachment of the Blockading Squadron. 

Admiral Cervera was trapped. There was danger, however, that 
his fleet might come out in a dark tropical night and destroy the 
American warships or possibly escape. Several plans were suggested 
to Sampson, but the one which found favor in his eyes came from 
Assistant Naval Constructor Richmond P. Hobson, which was to 
take a steamer into the narrow entrance of Santiago Harbor, there 
blow her up with a torpedo and escape in a small boat. The collier 
Merrimac was selected for the purpose, and at four o'clock in the 
morning of June 3, Hobson with a crew of seven men ran the ship 
into the channel and sank her under the heavy Spanish fire. The 
hulk did not quite block the channel. The heroes were captured by 
the Spaniards, who, under orders from Admiral Cervera, treated 
them with the greatest courtesy. 

Nothing, however, was known of their fate until Admiral Cer- 
vera with delightful chivalry sent his chief of staff to Rear-Admiral 
Sampson, notifying the latter that the eight men were prisoners 
and would be cared for as friends. The announcement that Cervera 
was bottled up was the signal for preparing a military expedition 



680 Mckinley's administration. [1898 

from the United States to Santiago. The first step was the estab- 
lishment of a base of operations at Guantanamo. This was effected 
on Thursday, June 9, by 850 marines, who were landed under the 
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington. They promptly for- 
tified themselves, and none too soon. On Saturday, June 11, they 
were attacked by the Spaniards, who waged an unsuccessful battle 
or skirmish for thirteen hours, in which the Americans had four men 
killed and the Spaniards thirty. The marines were reinforced from 
the fleet and shortly afterwards by Cuban insurgents. 

At home, Congress passed a war tax bill, and the Secretary of 
the Treasury was authorized to borrow $100,000,000. On June 31 
the United States captured Guam, the chief island of the Ladrone 
Archipelago. This little commonwealth is out of reach of civiliza- 
tion, and when the cruiser Charleston arrived, the colonial govern- 
ment had not heard of the war between the United States and Spain, 
and supposed that the warship had put in for provisions. The 
port captain came on board and apologized for not returning the 
salute, as they were entirely out of munitions of war. The Governor, 
Don Juan Marina, when asked to surrender the islands, expressed 
great surprise at the demand of Captain Glass of the Charleston, 
and twenty-five minutes afterward surrendered the Ladrones uncon- 
ditionally, but with a protest that he did this on account of the 
Americans' superior force and an absolute ignorance theretofore of 
the war existing between the two countries. 

Dewey's victory in the Philippines was followed by the prompt 
return to Cavite of General Aguinaldo and other Filipino insurgents 
who had fled from their native land to Hong Kong and Singapore. 
These exiles had scarcely landed when they began to organize a 
native army which rapidly rose into the thousands. Aguinaldo 
possessed a strong personality, and soon induced many of the native 
troops to desert the Spanish flag and join his forces. Within two 
weeks he had an army of three thousand armed men and at least 
five thousand equipped with bolos, spears and clubs. He fought 
many skirmishes, displaying considerable militarv ability, and was 
soon in possession of the province of Cavite. What with firearms 
purchased abroad and with those captured from the Spaniards, his 
armed forces increased steadily. His work proved of immense 
benefit to the Americans, as it kept the Spaniards on the defensive 
themselves against Dewey's ships and the American army, which 
at every point and prevented their making any effort to protect 
was now being hurried forward from San Francisco. 



1898.] BATTLE OF EL CANEY. 68 1 

Preparations for the first expedition to Cuba went on rapidly. 
The Fifth Army Corps, under Major-General William R. Shafter, 
had been mobilized at Tampa, and on June 14 thirty transports 
under a convoy of eleven warships left Tampa for Santiago. The 
expedition consisted of 773 officers and 14,564 men. In it was a 
cavalry troop known as the Roosevelt Rough Riders, which was to 
write its name large in the annals of the Republic. It was a 
curious organization, composed of ranchmen and cowboys from the 
West, college athletes and sportsmen from the East. It was raised 
by Theodore Roosevelt, who had resigned the position of Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy to organize the force, and was commanded 
by Colonel Leonard Wood, with Roosevelt second, as lieutenant- 
colonel. 

The expedition arrived off Santiago on Monday, June 20, and 
on the evening of June 22 had disembarked at Daiquiri. Here they 
were joined by four thousand Cuban insurgents under the command 
of General Calixto Garcia. The first skirmish took place on Friday 
near Las Guasimas, when the Spaniards attacked the troops that 
were advancing to support General Lawton. The brunt fell upon 
the Rough Riders under Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Roosevelt, and the regulars under General Young. In this engage- 
ment the former lost Captain Capron and Lieutenant Hamilton Fish, 
and several privates. Seven of the regulars were killed and fifty 
Americans wounded. 

The fighting lasted only a brief period, and then the Spaniards 
turned and fled, two thousand being routed upon their own soil by 
one thousand Americans. On Friday, July 1, the Americans, who 
had moved forward to the outskirts of Santiago, began an attack 
upon the outermost defense of the city. This combat was notable 
from the fact that both navies participated in the engagement. Rear- 
Admiral Sampson shelled the Spanish batteries at Aguadores as Gen- 
eral Bates attacked them from the land side. On the other hand, 
Admiral Cervera shelled the advancing American lines from his ships 
in the harbor. The American fighting line reached from the sea- 
shore up to the northern defenses. Northeast of Santiago was the 
village of El Caney, and on the same side were the San Juan hills 
and block-houses. 

These were the key to Santiago, and upon these the American 
forces made their chief attack. The onset against El Caney began 
by a light battery commanded by Captain Capron, father of the 
Captain Capron who fell at Las Guasimas, and supported by General 



682 Mckinley's administration. [1898. 

Lawton. General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry and General Kent's in- 
fantry began to move on San Juan Hill. The action opened at seven 
in the morning, and at nine o'clock the American troops were within 
five hundred yards of Caney. 

The engagement lasted until thirty minutes past four in the after- 
noon, when the Spaniards retreated to Santiago, retiring in good 
order and fighting as they went. The contest around San Juan Hill 
began shortly after the fighting started at Caney. Grimes' battery 
opened fire on the San Juan block-house, and the cavalry under Gen- 
eral Sumner crossed the San Juan River and moved forward to 
the right, General Kent's troops moving at the same time to the 
left. General Wheeler, who had been ill, rose from a sick-bed and 
joined his cavalry as they crossed the river. 

The firing became terrific and the losses on both sides heavy. 
Colonel Wickoff, commanding the Second Brigade, was killed; his 
successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Worth, fell seriously wounded ; his 
successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum, dropped wounded five min- 
utes afterward from a Spanish bullet, and Lieutenant-Colonel Ewers 
assumed command. Two regiments under Colonel Pierson moved 
on the left of the division and drove the enemy back to their trenches. 
Not until the afternoon did victory perch upon the American ban- 
ners. This was when reinforcements under Generals Lawton 
and Chaffee came forward and joined the fighting line. The 
Americans threw themselves upon the enemy and swept all 
before them. 

During the day, and especially during this last attack, the bravery 
was magnificent, and the credit belongs to all. Nightfall found the 
Stars and Stripes floating over San Juan and Caney, and the fight- 
ing lines well advanced upon' the Spani-sh trenches of Santiago. The 
next day the Spaniards made furious attempts to capture the posi- 
tions they had lost, but without avail. 

The following morning, Sunday, July 3, the war was practically 
ended by the destruction of Admiral Cervera's noble fleet. That 
gallant Spaniard had intended to remain in Santiago for an indefi- 
nite period, fearing an encounter with the American squadron out- 
side. This was now far stronger and more efficient than his own, 
so that he knew a conflict would mean the loss of his fleet in part 
or whole. His opinions were set at naught by Captain-General 
Blanco at Havana and by the Cabinet at Madrid. In compliance 
with orders from his superiors, Cervera led the Spanish fleet out of 
the harbor early in the morning. 



1898.] DESTRUCTION OF SPANISH FLEET. 683 

It was about thirty minutes after nine as the Infanta Maria 
Teresa came through the channel. The Americans were ready and 
eager for action. Within two minutes every gun was loaded and 
pointed at the advancing foe, and every vessel moving to the spot 
assigned to it by the plans which had been prepared in advance for 
the emergency. Now the Spanish cruisers cleared the entrance, 
and then their destroyers appeared in their wake. This was the sig- 
nal for the heaviest cannonading which the world had known up to 
that moment. 

Soon a Spanish cruiser burst into flames, and then a twelve-inch 
shell from the Iowa struck the Maria Teresa in a vital part. There 
was a terrific explosion, followed by vast clouds of smoke and then 
by rushing flames. As the smoke cleared she was seen steaming 
at full speed for the beach in order to prevent her sinking in deep 
water. In the next ten minutes a second cruiser lay a wreck not 
far from the shore, and in forty-four minutes the third surrendered. 
Only the Cristobal Colon now remained unhurt, and behind her sped 
the Iowa, Oregon, and Brooklyn. The Furor and Pluton were 
engaged by the Hist and the Gloucester, under Lieutenant-Com- 
mander Richard Wainright. 

The latter had been on the Maine when she was blown up, and 
was eagerly awaiting the time in which to obtain revenge, and now 
it had come. Every gun on board his little craft was fired with a 
precision that will never be forgotten; and regardless of the death- 
dealing character of the enemy, he steamed boldly toward them as 
if to run them down. But this heroic recklessness was not needed. 
The awful fire had riddled the two Spanish craft, which now turned 
and ran to the shore, reaching the rocks almost at the moment they 
began to founder beneath the waves. Four hours after the first 
gun was fired, the Colon surrendered, after her captain had beached 
her at a point about fifty miles west of Santiago. 

This memorable contest was marked by many dramatic incidents. 
Most notable was the work of the battleship Oregon, commanded 
by Captain Clark. On March 12 she had been ordered to leave 
San Francisco, where she was lying, to join the North Atlantic 
Squadron. This task in itself was a matter of great importance, as 
it involved an ocean voyage around the South American Continent 
of nearly fourteen thousand miles. So excellent was her construc- 
tion and so skilful her management, that she made this trip in record- 
breaking time and without the least injury to her complicated ma- 
chinery, reaching Jupiter Inlet, Florida, on May 24. Without 



684 Mckinley's administration. [1898. 

wasting time for repairs or cleaning, she joined the blockading 
squadron, and in the battle of Santiago proved herself the most ef- 
ficient battleship which had ever been seen upon the deep. 

When the second cruiser went down under the American fire, 
the crew of the battleship Texas broke out into wild cheers. Cap- 
tain Philip turned to his men and said. "Don't cheer, boys — the poor 
devils are dying." 

When the Vizcaya went down, the Iowa launched its boats and 
picked up some two hundred and fifty of the crew. They were 
taken on board the battleship, clothed and fed, and treated more as 
guests and friends than as enemies. The Spanish Captain Eulate, 
who had been wounded, was carried on board of the Iowa. As he 
approached Captain Evans he bowed, and, with tears falling from his 
eyes, presented his sword to the commander. The latter bowed, 
stepped back and answered, "Retain your sword, Captain. You 
are my guest and not my prisoner." 

Admiral Cervera, lightly clad in his underclothes, was rescued 
from the flagship. His courtly reception of Hobson now stood him 
in good stead. When lifted into the American boats, he was re- 
ceived with cheers, which never ceased until he had been taken on 
board the American ship and there clothed by the American officers. 

The naval battle of Santiago was as memorable as that of Manila. 
The Spanish fleet was destroyed, while the American was scarcely 
injured. The former lost 600 killed and 1,300 captured, while the 
American loss was one killed and one wounded. The destruction of 
Cervera's fleet was a terrible loss to the defenders of Santiago. They 
realized the hopelessness of the situation, and began negotiations 
looking toward surrender. 

On July 17 General Toral capitulated, and the surrender of his 
army of 23,000 men was followed by that of the garrison in the 
province of Santiago, amounting to about 4,000 more. 

Before Santiago had fallen the campaign of Porto Rico had 
begun. General Miles, at the head of an expedition of 15,000 men, 
landed at Guanica, on the south coast of the island, on July 25. 
The next day the Americans advanced to Yauco, where they had a 
skirmish with the Spaniards, who retreated in disorder. On July 28 
a detachment of sailors and marines landed at the Port of Ponce, 
which is two miles from the city, and occupied the place. Here 
occurred the extraordinary event of receiving the surrender of 
the city of Ponce by telephone. Everywhere the Americans re- 
ceived a hearty welcome from the Porto Ricans. At Yauco the 



1898.] Mckinley's administration. 685 

Alcalde issued the following interesting and inspiring proclamation : 

"Citizens, — Long live the Government of the United .States of 
America. Hail to their valiant troops. Hail, Puerto Rico, always 
American. 

"El Alcalde Francisco Magia, 
"Yauco, Puerto Rico, United States of America." 

In writing this last line the good mayor seems to have been the 
sudden possessor of the gift of prophecy. There were several small 
battles, especially at Guayama, Arecibo, Fajardo, Coamo, and Ai- 
bonito. Preparations had been made for a general engagement upon 
August 12, when the news came that an armistice had been declared 
by the two warring nations. 

In July the troops which had been forwarded from the United 
States began to arrive in Manila Bay. Major-General Merritt, com- 
mander-in-chief, reached Cavite on July 25. In the meantime the 
insurgents, under General Aguinaldo, had driven the Spaniards into 
Manila. The Americans began a campaign against the city and were 
vigorously attacked on the night of July 31, but repulsed the Span- 
iards with heavy loss. On August 13 the American army and navy 
began an attack upon the city, and after an exchange of shots, Gen- 
eral Jaudenes surrendered unconditionally. Thirteen thousand pris- 
oners and twenty thousand arms were handed over by General Jau- 
denes to General Merritt. 

On August 12 the Peace Protocol between the United States and 
Spain was signed at the White House by William R. Day, Secre- 
tary of State, for this country, an M. Jules Cambon, French Am- 
bassador, on behalf of Spain. The latter country disclaimed sov- 
ereignty over Cuba, ceded Porto Rico and Guam, and relinquished 
Manila and the Philippines pending the conclusion of a formal treaty 
of peace. 

The war was really ended. It had lasted less than four months 
and had cost about $150,000,000. The American losses had been 
2,910 by deaths from all causes. The Spanish losses have never 
been officially published, but were very heavy. The deaths from all 
causes are said to have been 40,000 and the prisoners taken 60,000; 
but the great loss of Spain was in its navy. At the beginning of 
the war it had been a second-class power, being seventh in the list 
of naval powers, and preceding Austro-Hungary, Turkey, Japan, 
China, Denmark, and Holland. At the end of the war it had fallen 
into the fourth class, being weaker and inferior to Austro-Hungary, 
Japan, Turkey, Holland, and Norway and Sweden. 



686 



Mckinley s administration. 



[1898. 



The final treaty of peace was signed December 10, 1898. Spain 
resigned sovereignty over Cuba and ceded to the United States Porto 
Rico and the smaller Spanish islands in the West Indies, Guam in 
the Ladrones, and the Philippine Archipelago. The United States 
agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000 for Spanish governmental prop- 
erty and for reimbursement of Spanish expenses in fighting the Fili- 
pinos. This treaty may be called the epitaph of Spain as a colonial 
power. It left her with no colonial possessions except a few islands 
off the coast of Africa and a small amount of territory in the Dark 
Continent. 




TREATY COMMISSIONERS. 



The Government was quick to appreciate the bravery and effi- 
ciency of its soldiers and sailors, and bestowed its rewards with a 
generous hand. Commodore Dewey was made Admiral, being the 
third in the history of the navy, while Howell, Remey, Watson, 
Sampson, Kempff, Sumner, Barker, Evans, Wilds, Schley, Dyer, 
Farenholt, and others equally gallant were made Rear-Admirals. 

In the army, on account of the distinction between the regulars 
and the volunteers, fewer permanent honors were conferred. A 
number of volunteers received commissions in the regular army, 
more especially the following, who were made Brigadier-Generals: 



1898.] WAR IN THE PHILIPPINES. 687 

Weston, Bates, Davis, (George W.) Sumner, Wood, Hughes, Ran- 
dall, Kobbe, Grant, Bell, Smith, Funston, Gillispie, Davis (George 
B.) Bisbee, and Crozier. 

One other event of the year, which attracted little notice on 
account of war excitement, was the annexation of Hawaii by joint 
resolution of Congress on July 6. This added 6,740 square miles 
of territory to the United States and a population of 109,000. 

Toward the close of 1898, a cloud arose upon the horizon in the 
Philippines. The insurgent leaders, instead of disbanding their 
armies, continued to increase them, and ere long it was evident there 
was a desire or conspiracy on the part of Aguinaldo and his lieu- 
tenants to establish a military despotism in the islands with the 
insurgent general as dictator and to expel the Americans without 
further ado. 

During the year now passed the native levies had been well 
drilled and had been augmented by native troops who had revolted 
from Spanish rule. They were well armed and equipped and made 
a formidable host. At least thirty thousand were in camp around 
Manila and they made angry demands that the city be turned over 
to them. Relations grew strained, and on February 4 the Filipinos 
made a savage attack upon the Americans, in which the latter lost 
49 killed and 148 wounded. They were repulsed with a tremendous 
loss of more than one thousand Filipinos. The next day Dewey 
shelled the Filipino camps and the army took four thousand prison- 
ers. From now on an active campaign was waged against the insur- 
gents on Luzon, and thereafter on Panay, Cebu, and Negros. The 
brown men displayed considerable bravery, but poor marksmanship 
and no military strategy. There was severe fighting at more than 
twenty points. At the end of the year the insurgent armies were 
broken up, Aguinaldo was a fugitive in the north, and the war had 
degenerated into guerilla tactics. On December 19 America lost 
one of its bravest sons in General Lawton, who was killed at the 
siege of San Mateo by a Filipino sharpshooter. 

This year witnessed a settlement of the Samoan question, which 
had long annoyed the governments of the United States, Great 
Britain, and Germany. It resulted in the division of the archipelago 
and the annexation of the island of Tutuila to this country, of 
which the harbor of Pago Pago is said to be one of the best in that 
part of the Pacific Ocean 

Compared with the two preceding years of intense excitement 
and activity, the year 1900 was a quiet breathing-spell for the Amer- 



688 Mckinley's administration. [1900. 

ican people. The Filipino war continued in guerilla form, and 
marked by extreme cruelty and savage excesses on the part of the 
insurgents. These were directed more especially toward thir own 
people. Numbers of the local chiefs levied blackmail upon their 
fellow-countrymen, and punished all refusals to pay with penalties 
of the severest type. Homes were burned, crops destroyed, farm 
animals confiscated, men tortured and slain, and even women and 
children put to death. 

In June the decennial census of the United States was taken, 
and gave great satisfaction to the citizens, and surprised foreign 
nations. It showed the population to have grown from 62,000,000 
in 1890 to 76,000,000 in 1900, or 77,000,000 including Porto Rico. 
There was a proportional increase in wealth, manufactures, indus- 
tries, and trade. Including specie, the total exports during the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 1900, were $1,499,000,000, and the imports 
$927,000,000, making a total of $2,426,000,000. These figures made 
the United States the first exporting nation of the globe, and second 
only to Great Britain in its commerce. 

During the year the colonies of Hawaii and Porto Rico were 
fairly prosperous. In the former there was no friction whatever, as 
the Island Commonwealth had long been moving upon American 
lines of development. In Porto Rico, on the other hand, there was 
some commercial trouble on account of the tariff changes and also 
of a series of storms which inflicted great damage to the planters. 
In Cuba the work of reorganization went on with singular smooth- 
ness. The task was difficult on account of the conditions, surviv- 
als of the Spanish regime, that confronted the American authorities. 
These were aided by the active support of the more public-spirited 
natives. The work done included the sanitation of the cities, the 
restoration of old roads and the construction of new ones, the de- 
velopment of the school system, and the establishment of local gov- 
ernment. 

The Presidential election of 1900 was less exciting than that of 
1896. The Republican party held its National Convention in Phila- 
delphia June 19, and unanimously nominated William McKinley of 
Ohio for President, and Theodore Roosevelt of New York for Vice- 
President. The Democrats met at Kansas City, Mo., July 4, and 
nominated William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska for President, and 
Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois for Vice-President. The silver ques- 
tion was again an issue, with a number of other planks respecting 
the Philippines, the Porto Rican tariff, and antitrust and anti- 



I9OO.] OUTBREAK IN CHINA. 689 

monopoly legislation. The four years of McKinley's administration 
had changed the financial conditions of the country to so great an 
extent that the arguments of 1896 were of small moment in 1900. 
Thus the cry in the former campaign that gold was growing scarcer 
and a gold famine was imminent was answered by the fact that the 
output of the precious metal had leaped in the United States from 
$46,000,000 to $71,000,000, and in the world from $198,000,000 
to $306,000,000; or, in other words, that the annual supply of the 
yellow metal was now as large as the combined output of gold and 
silver up to 1891. 

In this campaign Bryan repeated the whirlwind electioneering 
which had marked him four years previously, but this time he had a 
rival in Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican nominee for Vice-Presi- 
dent. The two men made new campaign records. They swept the 
continent, each addressing at least a million people. They lived 
on railway cars, and frequently spoke to ten and fifteen gatherings 
of citizens in a single day. 

The election was a greater victory than that of four years pre- 
viously. McKinley's plurality, which had been 603,000 in 1896, 
was 849,000, and his electoral majority, which had been 95, was now 
137. Congress was overwhelmingly Republican in both branches. 

The summer of this year was notable on account of a singular 
outbreak in China which involved the United States in a small war. 
A Chinese society known popularly as "The Boxers," but in Chi- 
nese as "The Society of the Clenched Fist," started an antiforeign 
movement in that Empire which grew rapidly and culminated in a 
series of riots marked by terrible cruelty. It occurred at a time 
when there were bitter dissensions in the Imperial Cabinet, and natu- 
rally enough the Boxer leaders became associated with the conserva- 
tive or antiforeign princes and statesmen of the realm. Several 
hundred Christian missionaries were slain, and tens of thousands of 
Christian converts. 

The civilized governments dispatched warships and soldiers to 
Taku, which is the seaport of Tien-tsin. Those who united in this 
movement were the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, 
Austria, Italy, Japan, and Russia. Against the trained and well- 
equipped soldiery of these Powers the Chinese mob, though vastly 
their superior in numbers, made but a ridiculous resistance. The 
Allied fleets shelled the Taku forts on June 17, landed soldiers and 
marines, and took them at the point of the bayonet. 

On June 21 the ships shelled Tien-tsin, and on the 23d they 



69O ATTACK ON PEKIN. [19OI. 

occupied the Foreign Quarter at Tien-tsin. Then came a pause 
while the Allies waited for the reinforcements which were en route. 
These were dispatched from Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, 
British and French India, Vladivostock, and Port Arthur, and by 
July 12 the forces were ready to move. The Americans, Japanese, 
French, and English attacked the native or walled city of Tien-tsin 
on July 13, and after a fierce fight of two days stormed the city and 
drove the Chinese soldiers out in a river of blood. In this contest 
the Americans lost Colonel Liscom, who> commanded the Ninth 
United States Infantry. This was the chief battle of the war, the 
Allies losing 500 in killed and wounded, and the Chinese over 6,000. 

The next three weeks passed in clearing the country of Boxer 
bands and preparing for the onward movement to Peking. This 
began on August 4. There were 19,000 men in the army, com- 
posed of 8,000 Japanese under Lieutenant-General Yamagutchi, 
4,800 Russians under Lieutenant-General Linevitch, 3,000 British 
under Lieutenant Gaselee, 2,500 Americans under Major-General 
Chaffee, and 800 French under Brigadier-General Frey. Although 
there were at least 100,000 Chinese in front of them, the Allies en- 
countered but little resistance. There were skirmishes continually, but 
the Chinese marksmanship was miserable, while the Allies fired with 
such precision that every attack meant a heavy loss to the Boxers. 

On the 14th the Russians reached a station outside the eastern 
gate of Peking, followed by the Americans the next morning. The 
Americans promptly scaled the wall of the Chinese capital and 
planted their colors upon its summit. They opened fire and entered 
the city. The progress made by the Americans and Russians en- 
abled the British to enter the place at another gate, and these were 
followed in turn by the remainder of the Allies. At three in the 
afternoon General Chaffee entered the Imperial City, and the capi- 
tal of the Yellow Empire had fallen. 

The Emperor, Empress-Dowager, and all the court officials were 
panic-stricken, and fled, leaving behind them nearly all their treas- 
ures. Thereafter the war was more a matter of police work than 
a military campaign. Then came retribution. The uprising had 
been utilized by every criminal in northeastern China, and through- 
out Chihli the common people themselves were among the first to 
seek protection from their own desperadoes. Every Boxer was 
marked and was shot down at sight. Every official who had been 
implicated in the murder of missionaries was dispatched promptly, 
sometimes under the cover of court-martial, but generally with no 



1901.] Mckinley's administration. 691 

unnecessary waste of time. The province was turned into a sea of 
blood, but without cruelty or vindictiveness. The Allies realized 
that life would be unsafe thereafter unless the dangerous elements 
of the Chinese nation should be taught a lesson once and for all, 
and the lesson was taught. Not until December was peace restored 
and China permitted to exercise autonomy. 

The year 1901 was marked by the steady and swift growth of the 
nation. Business continued as prosperous as ever, and commerce 
kept on enlarging. On March 23 Brigadier-General Frederick Fun- 
ston captured General Aguinaldo, the Philippine Dictator, by a ruse 
as ingenious as it was reckless. Some correspondence having fallen 
into the hands of the American soldiers, it was found that Aguinaldo 
was ordering Tagal troops to be moved to the far north of Luzon, 
where he was in hiding. General Funston, with the consent of his 
superior officers, proceeded with a party of Americans and Maca- 
bebes, or friendly Filipinos, to Aguinaldo's rebel headquarters. 

The Macabebes were disguised as insurgent soldiers, and Funston 
and his compatriots as American prisoners of war. So skillfully 
were his plans carried through that the entire detachment arrived in 
the presence of the Dictator without any suspicion having been 
aroused. When Aguinaldo' was informed that he was a prisoner of 
war, he stammered, and then said, "Is this a Yankee joke?" Upon 
learning that it was a serious reality, he broke into tears and yielded 
himself without the least resistance. He was conveyed to Manila, 
where he was received with every consideration and treated with all 
the honors of war. 

On June 12 the Cuban Constitutional Convention adopted a 
Constitution pursuant to the lines indicated by the Government at 
Washington. The vote showed that the people of the island were 
in thorough accord with American ideas, and that the only elements 
of disagreement were those which mark every healthful community 
in which the members possess ambition and progressive ideas. 

On July 4 the military government of the Philippines was trans- 
ferred to the civil authorities under William H. Taft. According to 
the official reports, home rule had been established in nearly every dis- 
trict, and prosperity was general. In a few districts, revolutionaries, 
or brigands masquerading as patriots, kept up a guerilla struggle, of 
which the main feature was the ruthless taxation of the Pacificos 
or law-abiding citizens. This was not incidental to the war, being 
a condition which had prevailed in many parts of the islands from 
time immemorial. The Malay races always have had a strong ten- 



692 ASSASSINATION OF McKlNLEY. [19OI. 

dency toward brigandage and piracy. The former has never been 
stamped out altogether, and the latter imperiled all navigation in 
the Far East until it was suppressed in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century by the united navies of Christendom. 

On September 6 occurred one of those terrible murders which 
have become only too familiar to the world since the establishment 
of the so-called Nihilistic and Anarchistic schools of thought. 

President McKinley was fatally shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anar- 
chist, while holding a public reception in the Temple of Music at 
the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, N. Y. The Chief Execu- 
tive was shaking hands with the people, when the assassin ap- 
proached with one hand wrapped in a handkerchief in whose folds 
he held a revolver concealed. As the President smiled and extended 
his hand to grasp that of the dastard, the latter fired twice, inflict- 
ing wounds from which the President died on Saturday, Septem- 
ber 14. He had received every aid which medical science could give, 
but the injuries were beyond mortal skill. He passed away saying, 

"God's will be done, not 
character was a sweetness 
ours." 

His death cast a gloom 
upon the civilized world, 
and in the silence of the 
catastrophe men realized 
that in the dead Presi- 
dent they had lost one 
of the most amiable char- 
acters in American his- 
tory. The assassination 
had taken away all politi- 
cal rancor in the same 
moment that it had taken 
away life. The public saw 
then, probably for the first 
time, that in McKinley's 
and urbanity, a courtesy 
and charity, a purity of thought and action, a patriotism and public 
spirit which were unmarred by petty, sordid, or improper motives. 
He went into history as the "Best Beloved" President. 

Czolgosz, the assassin, was electrocuted at Auburn, N. Y., 
October 29. 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

ROOSEVELT AND TAFT ADMINISTRATIONS I9OI-I9II. 

IMMEDIATELY after the death of President McKinley, Vice- 
President Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as Presi- 
dent of the United States. In that dark hour he announced that so 
far as was possible, he would carry out the policy of his predecessor. 
He asked, moreover, that the members of President McKinley's 
Cabinet retain their positions. Undoubtedly President Roosevelt 
intended to limit his important policies to a conservative develop- 
ment along the lines laid down by President McKinley. But the 
personal equation counts for much in the working out of executive 
plans, and President Roosevelt was not the type of man to keep 
his own personality in check. It was not long before he showed 
an honest and sturdy independence, injecting new aims and new 
ideals into the administration. 

Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth President of the United 
States, was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. He was 
graduated from Harvard in 1880 and took up the study of the law. 
In 1 88 1 he was elected to the New York Assembly, where he served 
three terms. He became a member of the United States Civil 
Service Commission in 1889, and in 1895 was made President of the 
Police Commission of New York City. In April, 1897, he was 
appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by President McKinley. 
At the outbreak of the war with Spain he resigned his office, raised 
a regiment of Rough Riders, and became its Lieutenant Colonel. 
He distinguished himself during the struggle, more especially at 
Las Guasimas and San Juan, and rose to be Colonel. Mustered out 
in September, 1898, he shortly afterward received the Republican 
nomination for Governor of New York, the party leaders in the 
State yielding of necessity to the popular clamor in his favor, and 
was elected. He was nominated for Vice-President and elected in 
1900, taking the oath of office on March 4, 1901. 

The Administration of President McKinley is the convenient 



6g4 Roosevelt's administration. [1902. 

period from which to date the larger expansion of our country, 
politically and commercially. Before that time we had in a sense 
lived unto ourselves, confining our foreign policy principally to the 
conservative safeguarding of American interests abroad and the 
upholding of the Monroe Doctrine. But with the acquisition of the 
Philippines and the great extension of our trade in foreign fields, 
our interests became necessarily more closely bound up with those 
of other nations, and the great European Powers began to take a 
larger notice of us. 

It was doubtless with a view to stimulating friendly relations 
between the United States and Germany that in February, 1902, 
Prince Henry of Prussia was sent by his brother, Emperor Wil- 
liam of Germany, to take part in the launching of the Emperor's 
yacht Meteor in New York Harbor, and to make a tour of the 
principal cities in the East and Middle West. The Prince's charm 
and tact made a most favorable impression, and when he sailed 
away he carried with him the goodwill of the American people. 
Yet it can hardly be said that his visit did much toward drawing 
Germany and the United States more closely together. 

In May, 1902, a volcanic cataclysm of almost unparalleled 
horror and devastation occurred in the West Indies. Mt. Pelee, 
a volcano on the island of Martinique, after several weeks of sub- 
terranean activity with rumbling noises and the emission of steam 
and smoke, gave a tremendous explosion in which a huge fragment 
of the mountain fell into the abyss, and a stream of lava, ashes, 
and mud, with burning gases, swept across the fields and over the 
city of St. Pierre. In a few seconds all life in a large area was 
extinct, the only human being in St. Pierre who escaped being a 
man imprisoned in a brick-and-stone cell in the city jail. A simi- 
lar but feebler eruption occurred nearly at the same time from the 
volcano La Souffriere on the island of St. Vincent. 

All telegraph communication with the islands was cut off, and 
it was four days before the news of the catastrophe reached the 
United States. Relief measures were at once begun, Congress 
giving an appropriation of $200,000, and private contributions being 
collected from all over the country. President Orr of the New 
York Chamber of Commerce secured a cargo of food supplies al- 
ready en route to the West Indies, so that the first food, clothing, 
and money received by the suffering survivors was sent by the 
United States. 



I902.] VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN THE ANTILLES. 695 

The most important internal issue raised by President Roosevelt 
in the first two years of his administration related to the public 
regulation of the great combinations of capital popularly known 
as " trusts." Early in his tenure he showed a purpose to enforce 
the so-called Sherman Anti-Trust law, forbidding combinations in 
restraint of trade. 

On November 13, 1901, the Northern Securities Company was 
incorporated under the laws of New Jersey. This Company, 
commonly called a " merger," was designed to effect the combina- 
tion of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railroads. By 
forming a company to take over the stocks of the two railroads 
the promoters of the plan thought that they had kept within the 
letter of the law, but President Roosevelt and Attorney General 
Knox thought otherwise and began suit against the merger. The 
United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Minnesota, in April, 
1903, gave a decision unanimously upholding the contentions of 
the Government as opposed to the merger. The case was carried 
to the Supreme Court of the United States, which in March, 1904, 
gave its decision that the Northern Securities Company was a 
"trust" and therefore illegal. 

While the Government was thus acting to bring corporations 
within the laws already existing, Congress was adopting legislation 
to facilitate the more definite control of the trusts. In the spring 
of 1903, the Fifty-seventh Congress passed the Elkins Anti-Rebate 
law, fixing a penalty for the giving or receiving of rebates on inter- 
state commerce. The Nelson amendment to the Department of 
Commerce and Labor law provided a Bureau of Corporations, to 
gather statistics as to the workings of corporations. 

Meanwhile the demands of organized labor for something more 
than a living wage were everywhere growing more insistent. By 
the summer of 1903 the tyranny of the labor unions had become 
so strong that in some trades work was almost at a standstill, capi- 
talist? being afraid to invest in new enterprises. Employers also 
began to form combinations similar to the labor organizations. 

In the spring of 1902 occurred the great strike of the anthracite 
coal miners, which dragged along for months in spite of many pri- 
vate efforts at settlement. At last President Roosevelt took a 
hand in the struggle and secured an agreement to submit the issue 
to a Commission appointed by the President himself. The miners 
thereupon went back to work. In the following March the Com- 



6o6 roosevelt's administration. [1902. 

mission, headed by Judge George Gray of Delaware, announced 
its awards. Miners and employers each gained certain points, and 
a permanent board of conciliation was established. 

The business prosperity which began after the election of Presi- 
dent McKinley in 1896 received a check in 1903. Through a great 
part of the year there was a downward movement in stocks. It 
was partly, however, a natural readjustment of values which had 
been greatly inflated during the boom period. 

The provisions made by Congress in 1902 for the civil adminis- 
tration of the Philippines included the establishment of popular 
government as soon as the people should show themselves ready 
for it. Meanwhile, Judge William H. Taft, who had been Presi- 
dent of the Philippine Civil Commission, was appointed governor. 
He returned to the United States in January, 1904, to become 
Secretary of War, and Luke E. Wright succeeded him in the gov- 
ernorship of the Philippines. One of the greatest obstacles to 
peace in the islands related to the possession of certain lands held 
by bodies of monks who were out of accord with the rest of the 
people. In December, 1903, Governor Taft made a formal visit 
to the Papal Court at Rome and effected an amicable arrangement 
by which these " Friar Lands" were taken over by the Insular 
government on payment of about eleven millions of dollars, and 
were afterward offered for sale on easy payments to the Filipinos 
themselves. 

Our Island ward, Cuba, on December 31, 190 1, elected as its 
first President, Senor Estrada Palma. He was inaugurated on 
May 20, I902, and on the same date occurred the formal with- 
drawal of American troops from the Island. We had done our 
duty by setting up an independent Cuban government and turning 
over to it the reins of authority. 

There remained, however, the obligation of a strong power, 
which had used intervention in freeing Cuba, to aid the new gov- 
ernment through its time of weakness. In the view of the Presi- 
dent it would be an act of justice to extend reciprocity to Cuba so 
that she might find a market for her products in the United 
States. During the winter of 1902—3 this question was warmly 
debated. The treaty was delayed by certain constitutional condi- 
tions that had to be complied with, as well as by the opposition 
of congressmen from the States in which beet sugar is manufac- 
tured. In December, 1903, the reciprocity treaty went into effect, 



I903.] CIVIL ADMINISTRATION OF THE PHILIPPINES. 697 

giving - to Cuban products sent to the United States a reduction of 
twenty-five per cent, from our regular tariff rates, while American 
exports to Cuba received reductions of twenty to forty per cent, 
from the regular Cuban tariff. 

The interests of the United States in Cuba, with the acquisi- 
tion of Porto Rico and the increasing interest in the construction 
of an Isthmian Canal, greatly increased the strategic importance 
of the Caribbean Sea to the United States. In 1901 an effort was 
made to purchase the Danish West Indies, a group of small islands 
east of Porto Rico. The treaty was finally rejected by the Danish 
Parliament and the plan was abandoned. 

Toward the end of 1903, the relations of Venezuela with 
European Powers again became very complicated. Great Britain 
and Germany, despairing of collecting in the ordinary way the 
money owed them by Venezuela, united in sending an ultimatum 
to the Venezuelan Government. The demand was rejected and 
the two Powers thereupon began a so-called "pacific blockade" 
of the Venezuelan coast. In this they were joined afterward by 
Italy. Ports were bombarded and Venezuelan gunboats captured 
or destroyed. As the possibility of a foreign occupation of Vene- 
zuela seemed to threaten a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, 
President Roosevelt took up the matter and urged the submission 
of the foreign claims against Venezuela to arbitration, a plan which 
was accepted by all of Venezuela's creditors. The three block- 
ading Powers, however, urged that they ought to be paid before the 
others, since their blockade, which had been expensive, had has- 
tened the solution of the problem. The other Powers replied that 
such a precedent would put a premium on the use of force to col- 
lect debts. The question was finally submitted to The Hague 
Tribunal, which in 1904 decreed that the three Powers which 
joined in the blockade were entitled to preferential payment. 

In 1903 a question that had long been a source of irritation 
between the United States and Canada was brought to settlement. 
The position of the boundary between Alaska and Canada de- 
pended on the interpretation of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, 
which was made when the geographical knowledge of that region 
was very limited. The discovery of gold along the Yukon River 
in 1896 led to a large immigration and greatly increased the com- 
mercial importance of the Alaskan territory. During the next few 
years the boundary disputes grew more and more acute. At last, 



5g8 roosevelt's administration. [!903- 

in January, 1903, a treaty was signed submitting the questions 
that had arisen to a Tribunal of three American and three British 
Commissioners. The decision of this Tribunal, given on October 
20, 1903, while it sustained the Canadian claims in one or two 
points, was chiefly in favor of the United States, giving to this 
country several of the outer islands and a continuous strip of terri- 
tory along the coast. In 1906 some further details of the Alaskan 
boundary were brought to a settlement. 

The years 1903-4 saw the definite beginning of an enterprise 
involving the greatest piece of engineering that was ever attempted 
by the United States or any other nation. For many years the 
idea of an Isthmian ship canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans had been before the world. Various routes had been stud- 
ied and surveyed, the two that seemed most practicable being that 
across the narrowest part of the Isthmus near the Panama railroad, 
and a more northern and longer route through Lake Nicaragua. 
Under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, Great Britain and the 
United States had once planned a combined effort to build a canal 
by the Nicaragua route; but the Civil War in America put this 
project finally out of sight. In 1879 M. de Lesseps of Paris ob- 
tained a concession from the United States of Colombia, and or- 
ganized a company for building a tide-level canal over the Isthmian 
route, and on January I, 1880, the first shovelful of earth was 
turned at Panama. The United States was then asked to guaran- 
tee the neutrality of the French-Isthmian Canal. But in a special 
message to Congress March 8, 1880, President Hayes declared: 
"The United States cannot consent to the exercise of control 
[over an interoceanic canal] by any European power. Such a ca- 
nal would be a great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and 
Pacific shores, and virtually a part of the coast line of the United 
States. No other great power would, under similar circumstances, 
fail to assert a rightful control over a work so closely and vitally 
affecting its interest and welfare." 

For some years the French people subscribed liberally to the 
De Lesseps Canal, and the general feeling of the United States 
was that if any canal were to be built by American enterprise it 
would have to be by the Nicaragua route. 

But in 1888 came a financial crash, revealing corruption and 
mismanagement on the part of the French officials. France was 
crazed by the revelations, and M. de Lesseps and many of his as- 



1902.] 



PANAMA AND THE ISTHMIAN CANAL. 



699 




THE PANAMA CANAL — PROFILE AND GENERAL VIEW. 



700 Roosevelt's administration. [1902. 

sociates were imprisoned. For several years the work was at a 
standstill, though later a new French company was formed which 
resumed operations for a time. 

The temporary failure of the French Canal Company stimulated 
for a time American interest in the Nicaragua plan. But in 1902 
a canal commission was appointed which reported in favor of the 
Panama route as on the whole more feasible. It was also discov- 
ered that the French company was willing to sell its rights in 
Panama for a reasonable sum, and in January, 1903, a treaty was 
negotiated between the United States and Colombia for the con- 
struction of the Panama Canal by the United States, our govern- 
ment agreeing also to pay the French company forty million dol- 
lars for its concessions and the work already done. 

By some later pretexts, however, the Colombian Congress failed 
to ratify this treaty, and the State of Panama, which had its own 
grievances against the central government of the Colombian Re- 
public, of which it was the most valuable State, and fearing also 
that the short route through their territory would be abandoned in 
favor of the Nicaragua route, began to talk of seceding from Co- 
lombia and setting up a government of its own. 

Colombia now reinforced her garrisons on the Isthmus, and the 
United States, which had guaranteed by an earlier treaty to keep 
the Isthmian transit open, sent warships to Colon to protect 
American interests and to prevent interference with travel over 
the Panama railroad. 

November 3, 1903, the independence of the State of Panama 
was proclaimed, a Provisional government was formed, and United 
States marines were landed at Colon and Panama with instructions 
to protect the railroad. As the Colombian troops could not put 
down the revolution without opposing the American marines they 
were finally withdrawn from Panama. 

On November 6th the United States recognized the new gov- 
ernment of Panama as the de facto government, and November 
13th the minister of Panama was formally received at Washington. 
European countries soon followed the lead of the United States. 
The Colombian government vigorously protested, and General 
Rafael Reyes was sent to Panama and then to the United States 
to see if he could not obtain concessions to the Colombian de- 
mands. When he became convinced, however, that President 



I902.] PANAMA AND THE ISTHMIAN CANAL. ^OI 

Roosevelt and Secretary Hay considered the Panama incident 
closed, he gave up his efforts and returned to Colombia. 

On February 4, 1904, a new treaty was signed between the 
United States and the Republic of Panama, by which the latter 
ceded to the United States in perpetuity a strip of land five miles 
wide on each side of the projected canal, with all rights of sover- 
eignty over this canal zone. In April Congress organized a tem- 
porary government for the Canal Zone, and the President took for- 
mal possession of the territory and appointed an Isthmian Canal 
Commission to take charge of the construction of the canal and 
the government of the zone. The property rights of the Panama 
Canal were now transferred to the United States at Paris by the 
payment from the United States Treasury of the forty million dol- 
lars that had been promised to the French Canal Company. Ten 
million dollars weie also given to the Republic of Panama, to- 
gether with the promise of certain annual payments in gold begin- 
ning nine years from the date of ratification. 

In October, 1904, the President directed Secretary of War 
Taft to visit Panama during the following month to reassure the 
people of the pacific intentions of the United States and settle all 
questions that had arisen. On December 2d all business matters 
then pending were settled by friendly negotiations between Secre- 
tary Taft and President Amador of Panama. 

July 4, 1903, saw the completion of the American cable across 
the Pacific Ocean to Honolulu and Manila, and thence to Shang- 
hai. President Roosevelt, then at Oyster Bay, New York, sent 
the first message to Governor Taft at the Philippine Islands. He 
also sent the first cable message around the world, the time of 
transmission being twelve minutes. 

Since the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, a number of large 
expositions have been held in the United States, the largest of 
these being the Pan-American Exposition of Buffalo in 1901, 
which was saddened by the assassination of President McKinley 
on September 6th within the grounds. This exposition had a very 
unique and varied electrical display and was known as " The Rain- 
bow City." Financially, however, the enterprise was a failure. 

Other expositions were held as follows : the Cotton-States Ex- 
position at Atlanta in 1895, to exhibit Southern industries; the 
Tennessee Centennial Exposition at Nashville in 1897, celebrating 
the centenary of the admission of Tennessee to the Union ; the 



702 roosevelt's administration. [1902. 

Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha in 1898, to show the 
achievements of the pioneers of the Mississippi Valley ; and the 
South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition at Charles- 
ton, 1901-2, where West Indian products formed an important 
part of the display. 

The year 1903 was the one-hundredth anniversary of the pur- 
chase of the Louisiana Territory from France. It was fitting that 
this anniversary of an acquisition which had been considered rather 
unimportant a hundred years before, but which was now divided 
into fourteen prosperous States and Territories, should be recog- 
nized. Accordingly a great international exposition was planned at 
St. Louis, Missouri. 

It was found impossible to have the exhibition ready in the 
centennial year, but it was opened with imposing ceremonies April 
30, 1904, and continued till December 1st. The grounds of this 
exposition were very large, covering 1.240 acres, while the World's 
Fair of 1893 at Chicago had 633 acres, and the Paris Exposition 
of 1900 had only 336. At the St. Louis Exposition the anthro- 
pological exhibit, especially from the Philippine Islands, attracted 
much attention. 

In February, 1904, the United States Senate approved an ap- 
propriation of two million dollars in aid of a Lewis and Clark 
Exposition in Portland, Oregon, to celebrate the centenary of 
the Oregon explorations. This was held in 1905, and attracted 
many tourists from the other parts of the country, who thus be- 
came acquainted with the important resources of the Pacific 
States; and unlike most of the preceding expositions of America, 
this one proved to be a financial success. 

At the beginning of the year 1904 serious internal troubles 
arose in Santo Domingo which lasted for several years. In 1901 
the government of Santo Domingo had taken the collection of its 
customs out of the hands of an Improvement Company in New 
York, causing many business disputes. Other foreign creditors 
also made demands, which became so stringent that in 1904 
President Roosevelt thought it needful, in support of the Monroe 
Doctrine and to keep out foreign intervention, that the United 
States should preserve order in that island. On January 22, the 
United States recognized officially the provisional government 
that had been set up, as being the de facto government, and on 
February 6, announced that the United States would assume con- 



1904-] PERDICARIS AND MOROCCO. 703 

trol of the custom house of the country and preserve order while 
guaranteeing territorial integrity. A year later Santo Domingo 
agreed officially that the United States should for a time collect 
revenues and apply them to local expenses and the payment of 
foreign debts. For a time order prevailed, but in 1906 new dis- 
turbances arose, resulting in civil war in Santo Domingo. In 
1907, however, a new treaty "to assist the United States in the 
collection and application of the customs revenues of the Domini- 
can Republic," was ratified by the two governments. 

In 1904 also an episode occurred which recalled forcibly the 
events of a century earlier when (in 1804) Decatur's frigate, the 
Philadelphia, was sent to the Barbary Coast to check the ravages of 
Moorish pirates. 

On May 20, 1904, the whole Atlantic squadron was ordered to 
Tangier, Morocco, to demand the release of an American naturalized 
citizen named Perdicaris, who with his stepson, Varley, a British 
subject, had been kidnapped by Arab bandits under a notorious 
brigand named Raisuli, the intention being to obtain money 
extortions from the weak and unfortunate Sultan of Morocco. After 
rejecting certain demands of the brigands, the United States, on June 
1st, gave notice to the Moorish authorities that Raisuli was to be held 
personally responsible for the lives of his captives and that his execu- 
tion would be demanded if they were put to death. After three 
weeks' delay Secretary Hay gave instructions to the Consul-General 
at Tangier to demand either Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead. This 
had the desired effect and two days later Pericardis and Varley were 
returned to Tangier. 

During the negotiations on this question the United States had 
asked the friendly offices of France, which claimed some jurisdiction 
in Morocco. This led to international discussions, and the outcome 
of all these events was an International Conference held in 1906 at 
Algeciras, Spain, and participated in by France, Germany, England, 
Spain, the United States and delegates from Morocco, at which a 
general act or treaty was signed that quieted Moorish irregularities, 
and fixed the relations of the government of Morocco to other powers. 

In August, 1904, the American squadron was also sent to Smyrna 
to protect the rights of American citizens in Turkey. As a result of 
this demonstration, American schools in Turkey were given govern- 
ment protection and placed on an equal footing with those of other 
powers. 



704 



ROOSEVELT S ADMINISTRATION. 



The new relations to international affairs that had come to the 
United States with the conclusion of the Spanish War and the acqui- 
sition of the Philippine Islands, led Congress and the President to 
take prompt action in regard to the war which early in 1904 seemed 
imminent between Russia and Japan. On February 8th, the United 
States invited England, Germany, and France to unite with America 
in suggesting to Russia and to Japan the neutralization of China 
and the restriction of hostilities to a small area. A few days later 
this invitation of the United States was extended to most of the other 
European powers. When war was declared on February 11, 1904, 
President Roosevelt at once issued a proclamation of neutrality, and 
similar action was taken by most of the States of Europe. 

During the summer and fall occurred the long siege and bombard- 
ment of Port Arthur, and in September, President Roosevelt sug- 
gested to the Inter-parliamentary Union then in session at the Louis- 
iana Purchase Exposition, the advisability of calling a Second Peace 
Conference at The Hague. To this suggestion the delegates to the 
Union gave a unanimous assent, requesting the President to take 
the initiative in this matter. Accordingly in October, Secretary of 
State John Hay under the instructions of the President, sent a note 
to all representatives of the United States in foreign countries that 
had signed the Acts of the Hague Conference of 1899, inviting all 
these nations to join in a New Peace Conference at The Hague. This 
was finally carried out in 1907, although for diplomatic reasons the 
final invitations to this Conference were given by the Czar of Russia. 

On January 2, 1905, Port Arthur capitulated to Japan, and on 
May 27th and 28th, Admiral Togo annihilated the Russian fleet under 
Admiral Rojestvensky in the Sea of Japan, destroying or capturing 
all the Russian battleships. Cn June 9th, President Roosevelt appealed 
to Japan and Russia for a meeting of the two powers to consider 
terms of peace, and two days later, the two countries having agreed 
to such a peace parley, the President suggested the Navy Yard at 
Portsmouth, N. H., as a convenient place for such a meeting. 

In August, 1905, the envoys of the two powers met at Portsmouth. 
where some of the conditions of peace were soon agreed upon. On 
certain points, however, a deadlock occurred, and a recess was tarer, 
during which a committee of the envoys sought the friendly aiH 1 1 
the President at Oyster Bay, N. Y. At last, on September 5th. v 
treaty of peace was signed by which Manchuria was restored to China, 
and the Japanese obtained control of the external relations of Korea. 



1904. RHODES SCHOLARS. 705 

Two years later, after the abdication of the Emperor of Korea, Japan 
assumed control of its internal affairs as well. 

The terms of the treaty of Portsmouth were not wholly acceptable 
to the Japanese people, who thought that more liberal concessions 
should have been accorded as the result of their great victories, and 
on September 7th, Tokio was placed under martial law to check the 
disorders that arose as the result of the popular dissatisfaction. The 
treaty went into effect, however, and December 10, 1906, President 
Roosevelt was made the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize of that year 
for his aid to the fraternization of nations in thus securing the Peace 
of Portsmouth. This peace prize (about $40,000) was given by 
Roosevelt to the cause of industrial peace as the nucleus of a fund 
for this purpose to be held by trustees at Washington. 

When Cecil Rhodes, the great statesman of South Africa, died 
at Cape Town in 1902, he left a legacy of $10,000,000 to create a 
fund for the support of a certain number of three-year scholarships 
at Oxford University. By the conditions of the will there might be 
two recipients from each State and territory of the United States, 
or one hundred in all, with fifteen from Germany, and from one to 
nine in each of the British Colonies. In October, 1904, seventy 
Rhodes scholars were admitted to Oxford, forty-three of these being 
from America. 

The thirtieth Presidential election of the United States occurred 
in 1904. On June 23d, the Republican National Convention met 
at Chicago and nominated Theodore Roosevelt for President with 
Charles Warren Fairbanks of Indiana as Vice-President. On July 
9th, the Democratic Convention met at St. Louis and nominated 
Judge Alton B. Parker of New York for President with Henry G. 
Davis of West Virginia for Vice-President. Judge Parker at once 
announced his adherence to the gold standard of currency values, 
but the minds of the country had turned to other issues, and the rela- 
tion of the gold and silver standards was not made an important 
issue in this election. 

The campaign was less exciting than usual, and November 8th, 
Roosevelt and Fairbanks weie elected by a large popular majority. 
On March 4, 1905^ they were inaugurated for what was practically 
Roosevelt's second term, though this was the first time the office had 
been given him by the vote of the people. During this term there was 
much public discussion as to whether he might properly be elected 
again, consistently with the precedents that had virtually denied 



^06 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [19O4. 

to the chief executive more than two terms of office. But on Decem- 
ber n, 1907, the President himself settled this question by announc- 
ing that he would not be a candidate for the Presidency in the follow- 
ing year. 

The year 1904 saw great advancement in the cause of Interna- 
tional Arbitration, in which the United States now began to take a 
leading part. For many years various organizations in America had 
been working for peace among the nations, the oldest of these being 
the American Peace Society, organized in Boston in 1828. Similar 
organizations existed in European countries, and an Inter-Parlia- 
mentary Union for Arbitration composed of members of legislative 
bodies from many nations had been formed, which soon became the 
most important single agency for organizing the world for peace. 

In January, 1904, a national arbitration conference in Washington 
brought together a remarkable body of delegates, and one result 
of this conference was an invitation given by Congress and the Presi- 
dent for the Inter-Parliamentary Union to hold its twelfth conference 
in September, at St. Louis, in connection with the Louisiana Pur- 
chase Exposition. The delegates to this Union, about two hundred 
in number, came as the guests of the government, Congress having 
appropriated $50,000 to meet this expense. The meeting was one 
of great significance and resulted in the President of the United States 
taking the initiative in proposing to the nations of Europe the Second 
Peace Conference at The Hague. 

In 1904, also, the Lake Mohonk Conference of New York, which 
meets each summer for the discussion of racial and humanitarian 
questions, brought together the largest and most influential gathering 
that had ever been held at that place, to discuss the questions of 
arbitration and of peace. 

Finally in October, 1904, the International Peace Congress, whose 
executive work is carried on by the International Peace Bureau of 
Switzerland, was invited to hold its thirteenth annual session in 
Boston, which resulted in the most remarkable public demonstia- 
tion in favor of arbitration that had ever been shown It enrolled 
more than a thousand members with delegates f rom seventeen 
different countries, and the reception given to the welcoming additas 
of Secretary of State Hay, left no longer any room fci doubt ihat 
the cause of friendship among the nations had won its way to almost 
universal recognition. 

In the two years 1904 and 1905, treaties ot arbitration were nego- 



I905.] ARBITRATION. JOJ 

tiated by the United States with Great Britain, France, Germany, 
Austria-Hungary, Norway-Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal and Mexico. 
These were in exactly the same language and provided that differences 
of a legal nature or relating to the interpretation of treaties, which 
cannot be settled by diplomacy, shall be referred to the Permanent 
Court of Arbitration at The Hague, " provided that they do not 
affect the vital interests, the independence, or the honor of the two 
contracting states, and do not concern the interests of other parties." 
February n, 1905, the Senate ratified these treaties, but with an 
amendment requiring that each specific proposal for arbitration 
should be put into the form of a treaty to be referred to the Senate for 
approval. The President, however, holding that this amendment 
vitiated the force of the treaties themselves, decided not to submit 
them to the countries with which the original papers were signed. 
So, for the time being, this important movement in behalf of interna- 
tional arbitration received an apparent check, but came to the front 
again with the assembling of the Second Hague Conference in 1907. 

On January 28, 1905, the Senate ratified a treaty with Guatemala, 
San Salvador, Peru and Honduras for submitting to arbitration at 
the Hague Tribunal all claims for pecuniary loss or damage that cannot 
be adjusted by diplomacy, " when these claims are of sufficient 
importance to warrant the expense of such arbitration." This treaty, 
which was to be in force for five years, was proclaimed by President 
Roosevelt on March 24, 1905. 

On July 1, 1905, John Hay, who had been Secretary of State 
during the Spanish War and the period when America was forming 
new international relationships, died suddenly, and July 6th, Hon. 
Elihu Root succeeded to this important office. It was chiefly Hay's 
skilful diplomacy that had adjusted the difficult Alaska Boundary 
dispute. He also prepared the way for the better relations with 
China through his memorable " open-door " correspondence, and 
secured the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, thus gaining 
for the United States the sole control of the Panama Canal. 

An event connected with the Naval Service attracted public 
interest about this time. In 1792, John Paul Jones, the naval hero 
of the Revolution, died in Paris, and the records of his burial were 
lost. In 1905, General Horace Porter, the American Ambassador to 
France, was directed to investigate the question of the death of Paul 
Jones and the final disposition of his remains. After long search 
General Porter found the body of Jones in the old St. Louis Ceme- 



708 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [1905. 

tery in a remarkably good state 01 preservation. A special naval 
squadron was then sent to bring the body to America, and it was 
buried with imposing honors at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. 

A Statehood bill which occasioned long discussion was passed 
by Congress in 1905. It provided for the admission of Oklahoma 
as a State, including the Old Indian Territory, and for Arizona and 
New Mexico also as a single State. Much opposition arose, especially 
in regard to the union of New Mexico and Arizona, in consequence 
of which the act itself became finally void. June 16, 1906, however, 
the President signed a new Statehood bill admitting Oklahoma as 
the forty-sixth State of the Union and omitting all reference to the 
other territories. Finally in 19 10, a new bill was passed providing 
for the admission of New Mexico and Arizona as separate States. 

In 1905 the Red Cross Association of America was reorganized 
on a national basis and incorporated by Congress as the American- 
National Red Cross Society, with Secretary-of-War Taft as President. 
This society, which was first organized in 1881 with Clara Barton 
as the first official president, was an outgrowth of the European Red 
Cross movement which began with efforts for the relief of soldiers 
in the Crimean War, and was regularly organized at Geneva in 1863. 
The American Red Cross had given important relief in many national 
calamities, its largest and most important service being in the care 
of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Spanish War, and the relief 
of Cubans rendered destitute as the results of that war. 

The year after its reorganization as a distinctly national society 
it had a chance to show in a signal way the value of its services to the 
nation in times of peace. 

On the 18th of April, 1906, San Francisco, San Josa, and other 
points in California were visited with a destructive earthquake, in 
which many blocks of buildings were destroyed, many of these being 
valuable public buildings, including some of the Leland Stanford, 
Jr. University buildings near Palo Alto. In San PVancisco a terrible 
fire followed, which was not undercontrol until April 20th, and was 
even more destructive than the earthquake itself. A large part of 
the city was destroyed. There was much loss of life, and the property 
loss of the whole California catastrophe was estimated as not less than 
five hundred millions of dollars. 

A San Francisco Relief Society was at once formed, which, co- 
operating with the National Red Cross Society, took charge of the 
relief measures, and the funds that were rapidly poured in from all 



I906 ] ANTI-JAPANESE FEELING IN PACIFIC STATES. 709 

parts of the United States. In a few months the rebuilding of the 
city was well under way, and San Francisco was recovering fast from 
this almost unprecedented calamity. 

An irritation that was already beginning to be felt by Japan 
toward America was increased in the summer of ioc6 by the killing 
in Alaskan waters of certain Japanese who had been poaching on the 
American seal-fisheries. This feeling was greatly augmented, October 
15th, by an action of the San Francisco Board of Education, excluding 
Japanese pupils from the regular public schools. The nominal 
excuse for this was that the presence of adult Japanese in the primary 
schools interfered with the best working of these schools. It was 
generally believed, however, that the action had its foot in a general 
racial or anti-oriental feeling on the part of the people of the Pacific 
Coast, who desired the exclusion of Japanese immigrants as well as 
of immigrants from China. 

Various anti- Japanese tumults in California now had to be put 
down, and this brought to the front the curious relation of the dual 
governments of State and nation, a situation that Asiatic govern- 
ments could not easily understand. During the fall and winter the 
Anti- Japanese feeling had various manifestations in the other Pacific 
States as well. 

The difficulties were smoothed over in a measure by tactful 
efforts on the part of the Federal government. Secretary Metcalf 
was sent to the Pacific Coast, and made a report which was embodied 
in a special message from the President to Congress. In December 
the school question was adjusted by an arrangement that the Japanese 
pupils should attend separate schools whenever this seemed desirable. 
A later result of the agitation was a clause embodied in the Immigra- 
tion Bill passed by Congress in 1907, requiring that Japan should 
issue no more passports to laborers to come to the United States. 
So the agitation temporarily subsided, though it was renewed in a 
measure in the fall of 1907 by an attack on Japanese eating-houses. 

In December, 1908, California and Nevada passed bills extending 
the Chinese exclusion laws to other Asiatics as well. In Oregon, 
Washington, Montana and Nebraska also similar legislative bills 
were presented. The American residents in Japan now complained 
that this tended to remove the good impression caused by the recent 
visit of the American fleet to Japan, and that it might result in retal- 
iative measures. The President sent remonstrances to the Pacific 
States, and Japan gave notice that such legislation would be taken as 



710 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [1906. 

a breach of faith. The Japanese, however, exercised a commendable 
restraint of action, and the Federal government made it clear that 
most of the American people sympathized with the President in con- 
demning the Anti-Japanese legislation. So nothing very serious 
happened, although for several years apparently unfounded predic- 
tions were sometimes heard regarding the danger of a coming war 
between Japan and the United States. 

In the early part of 1906, disorders arose in the Philippine Islands, 
and on March 8th, a battle was fought near Jolo between the insurgents 
and the American troops in which 600 Moros, but not many Americans, 
were killed. Quiet was soon restored, and on June nth, public schools 
were opened in many parts of the islands with a school attendance 
of half a million pupils. 

On July 30, 1907, the election for the first Philippine Assembly 
was held, although only a small fraction of the legal voting population 
cast their votes on this occasion. The new government went into 
effect on October 16th, with a legislature of two houses and a Gov- 
ernor-general at the head. The legislative powers of the Philippine 
Commission were now transferred to the new government, though 
11,000 American troops were still kept at the Islands for the sake 
of the " moral effect." 

In accordance with a promise made while he was governor of the 
Islands, Secretary Taft (who had been called the Father of the 
Filipinos) went on to Manila to attend the opening of the Philippine 
Assembly, and made an address which did much to create confidence 
and to aid the adjustments of the new government with the United 
States. He also visited Japan and China, being enthusiastically 
received in both countries. 

An uprising in Cuba which the native government could not 
suppress, broke out in 1906, and brought again to the front the neces- 
sary relation of the United States to Cuban affairs. The legal rela- 
tions of the two governments had been defined in the Piatt Amendment, 
to the Army Appropriation Bill of 1901, the Cuban Constitutional 
Convention having accepted the conditions then imposed. 

When the insurrectionary movement began on August 20, 1906, 
a desire for American intervention began to manifest itself in Cuba, 
and September 8th, President Palma made an appeal to the United 
States for its friendly offices. September 27th, American intervention 
was proclaimed. The following day President Palma resigned, and 
on September 29th, Secretary-of-War Taft, under the authority of the 



I906.] INSURRECTION IN CUBA. 711 

President, announced himself as the provisional governor of Cuba. 
On reaching the island he issued a proclamation of amnesty to all 
persons charged with political offenses. October 6th, Judge Charles 
£. Magoon was appointed provisional governor in place of Secretary 
Taft. A disarmament commission headed by Brigadier- General 
Funston was also appointed, and 2,000 American marines and 5,600 
troops were sent over on warships and stationed at strategic points. 

Most of the rebels soon laid down their arms and the work of 
pacification proceeded rapidly. On December 2d, Governor Magoon 
issued a decree that unseated half of the Cuban Congress, declaring 
all seats vacant that had been filled at the election of 1905, the belief 
being that the Cuban government had stifled the voice of the people 
in that election. A new election was then ordered to fill the vacant 
seats. 

During Magoon's governorship various new disorders in Cuba 
had to be put down; but in 1908 and election for President in Cuba 
resulted in the choice of General Josi Miguel Gomez. On January 28, 
1909, he was installed, and soon afterwards the American troops 
were recalled, with the stipulation on the part of the United States 
that all United States decrees then in force should continue until 
legally revoked by Cuba, and that all money obligations of the 
United States in Cuba should be assumed by the new government. 
President Gomez agreed to all these requirements, and gave the 
thanks of the Cuban people to the American people, President Roose- 
velt and Governor Magoon. 

The work on the Panama Canal up to 1906 was mostly by way 
of preparation, but during this year more definite plans were agreed 
upon, and the work went on more rapidly. A majority of the con- 
sulting engineers had favored a sea-level canal, believing that the 
foundations could scarcely be made strong enough to support the 
immense locks that would be required in a canal of the other type. 
But after a careful investigation the Senate voted, June 21, 1906, in 
favor of the minority report for a lock canal, and plans began to be 
laid for its definite construction. It was determined to construct 
near Gatun a duplicate flight of three locks with a lift and descent 
from a lake 30 miles long and 164 square miles in area, the object 
of this reservoir being to receive the floods of the Chagres River. 
Another lock was to be built at San Pedro on the Pacific side. The 
deepest cut for the canal was to be at Culebra, where the summit 
of the natural surface is 325 feet above the sea level, 



712 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [1906. 

On November 6, 1906, President Roosevelt started for a personal 
inspection of the Panama conditions, saying, as he left Washington, 
" I am going down to see how the ditch is getting on." He landed at 
Colon, and on November 15th, he was the guest of President Amador 
at Panama, both of these cities being in the canal zone, but not of 
it, having been exempted by special treaty from the jurisdiction of 
the United States. The President's visit to Panama awakened 
much interest, as this was the first time that a President of the United 
States had ever passed from under the jurisdiction of the national 
flag. After three days spent in the inspection of the canal conditions, 
the President visited Porto Rico, and on November 26th, he arrived 
again in Washington. 

Early in the year 1909 President-elect Taft also sailed for Panama 
with an advisory board of six consulting engineers lor a new inspection 
of the canal. The lock-type of canal was again approved, the founda- 
tions of the Gatun locks were carefully examined, and plans for the 
building of the Great Dam at Gatun were laid. It was also decided 
to widen the locks so as to admit vessels of the largest size. A good 
report on the Canal was given to Congress, which now voted to 
increase the Panama appropriations up to $500,000,000 if needed. 

Certain business troubles relating to President Castro's adminis- 
tration in Venezuela during the year 1905 grew more or less acute. 
In 1907 events moved with startling rapidity and in 1908 the situation 
became critical. Large pecuniary claims of American asphalt com- 
panies were presented, which Venezuela refused to submit to arbitra- 
tion. The Dutch government also made demands which were not 
complied with. In June, 1908, the United States recalled its minister 
to Venezuela, and all diplomatic relations were severed between the 
two countries. President Castro about this time sailed for Europe, 
ostensibly for surgical treatment, and General Gomez became acting 
President. In December, 1908, Gomez was proclaimed President. 
Some months later Castro renounced his claim to the presidency, 
the disturbances quieted down, and the American asphalt claims have 
since been settled by a cash payment. 

On July 23, 1906, the third great Pan-American Conference of 
American Republics met at Rio Janeiro. It was opened by an 
important speech from Secretary-of-State Root, defining the attitude 
of the United States to other American nations. The proceedings 
of this Conference marked an important step in the unification of 
Pan-American interests. 



I906.] PAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS. 713 

As early as 1826 an attempt had been made by Henry Clay to 
call a Pan-American Conference, but the effort failed because it was 
premature. In the winter of 1889-00 such a Conference was held 
in Washington, largely through the efforts of James G. Blaine, the 
subjects discussed being the protection of mutual rights, and reciproc- 
ity among American nations. Through the action of this Conference 
there was also established at Washington a " Bureau of American 
Republics " to gather information in regard to the mutual interests 
of all American countries. 

The Pan-American Exposition of Buffalo helped to cement the 
growing ties of friendship among American nations, and in 1901-2, 
a second Pan-American Conference was held in Mexico City, at 
which one of the important subjects discussed was the construction 
of a great international railroad from the United States to Brazil. 
This was made the subject of special reports at the Third Pan-American 
Conference at Rio Janeiro, and the Bureau of American Republics 
was instructed to suggest measures to promote the railroad enter- 
prise, and to prepare forms of contracts with connecting lines of steam- 
boats to certain American ports. 

The chief subject discussed, however, at the Rio Janeiro Con- 
ference was the so-called Calvo or Drago Doctrine, which declares 
that foreign debts in American countries should not be collected by 
force, but claimed through the ordinary courts of the debtor country. 
After much discussion it was decided to refer this matter to the 
Hague Peace Conference of the following year. 

In 1906 the " Bureau of American Republics " at Washington 
was reorganized under the name " The Pan-American Union " and 
the scope of its duties was widened. It holds the papers of the Pan- 
American Conference, and performs the duties laid upon it by these 
conferences. Its executive office is in a stately marble building in 
Washington (the gift of Andrew Carnegie) which was dedicated 
April 26, 1910. in the presence of representatives of twenty-two Amer- 
ican republics, and the mission of the Union is " to promote the reign 
of peace and goodwill and of progress moral and material over the 
republics of this vast continent." 

A fourth General Pan-American Conference was held at Buenos 
Ayres in 1910, and by these four great gatherings, and the Pan-Ameri- 
can Union with which they are connected, much has been done to 
unify the interests of All-America. 

In addition to the four general Pan-American Conferences several 



714 Roosevelt's administration. [1907. 

have been held of a more private or semi-official nature, or dealing 
with more limited areas. As a result of one of these, a Central Amer- 
ican Court of Arbitration was established in 1902 at San Jose, Costa 
Rica, but it has accomplished little. An important Central American 
Conference, however, was held at Washington in November, 1907, 
and resulted in new treaty relations among the Central American 
States after more than a hundred years of revolution and internal 
wars. 

The second great Peace Conference of Nations was held at The 
Hague from June 15th to October 18, 1907. The first Hague Confer- 
ence, held in 1899, had for its chief work the establishment of the 
" Hague Tribunal " or " Permanent Court of Arbitration " to which 
international disputes that cannot be settled by diplomacy may be 
referred. By this Hague Tribunal nine decisions on international 
questions submitted to it have thus far been rendered, the first of 
these being the division of a religious bequest (the Pius Fund) between 
the United States and Mexico; and the ninth (rendered in February, 
191 1) being the settlement of a case between England and France 
relating to the extradition of a British prisoner. 

> The second Hague Conference, which was first proposed at the 
Inter-Parliamentary Union in St. Louis, in 1904, was convened in 
1907 by Queen Wilhelmina, upon the formal invitation of the Czar 
of Russia. Its sessions were held in the " Hall of Knights," but on 
July 30th the foundation stone of the new Carnegie " Palace of Peace " 
was laid, a magnificent building which will be completed about 1913. 
In addition to the Carnegie Fund of $1,500,000 given for its erection, 
other countries have made subscriptions for its adornment, Great 
Britain having promised the four stained windows for the General 
Court of the Palace. 

The Hague Conference of 1907 had 239 delegates representing 
forty-six nations, including all the great powers and a large number of 
the smaller powers of the world. The American delegation included 
Joseph H. Choate, Ambassador to England; General Horace Porter, 
former Ambassador to France; David J. Hill of the State Depart- 
ment, and four other members. 

At the opening session General Porter announced that the United 
States reserved the right to introduce the questions of the limitation 
of armaments and the Drago Doctrine. The long term of the Con- 
ference was filled with complicated discussions at which much diplo- 
macy was needed to harmonize conflicting interests. 



1907.] HAGUE CONFERENCE. 715 

The work of the Conference was organized in four divisions, 
dealing with Arbitration, Land War, Maritime War, and " The Geneva 
Convention " or Red Cross organizations. 

Proposals for a " Model Arbitration Treaty " for all nations 
were submitted from America, and a form was proposed similar to 
that of the treaties that had been negotiated by the United States 
in 1904, providing also that all disputes among nations that cannot 
be settled by other means shall be submitted to the Hague Tribunal. 
This form of treaty received formal endorsement from the Conference 
and was definitely accepted by thirty-five powers. But the rule 
of the Conference being that no measure could be adopted without 
substantial unity among the nations represented, the " Model Treaty " 
was defeated by the influence of Germany, which, with several other 
powers, refused final assent to the measure. Since 1907, however, 
the work of arbitration, thus left unfinished at The Hague, has been 
practically accomplished by similar treaties to the proposed Model 
Treaty, which have been negotiated between most of the nations of 
the world. 

The Drago Doctrine, forbidding armed intervention for the 
collection of debts, was introduced to the Conference by Dr. Drago 
of Argentina. It was opposed by some European delegates, but 
through the efforts of the American delegation a compromise measure 
was adopted to the effect that foreign debts should not be collected 
by force except as a last resort. 

The chief measure, however, to which the American delegates 
to the Conference were committed, and for which they fought from 
first to last, was the establishment of two new courts at The Hague, 
a " Court of Arbitral Justice," with larger powers than those held 
by the " Permanent Court of Arbitration," and an " International 
Prize Court," to regulate the capture of vessels in time of war. It 
was said that the " Permanent Court of Arbitration," in spite of 
the important service it had rendered, was neither " permanent " 
nor "a court" but rather a list of judges from whom arbitrators 
might be chosen. The court has to be created for each specific case, 
the costs to be borne by the two arbitrating nations; and as the 
expense is large, the smaller states seem to be practically debarred 
from submitting their disputes to this tribunal at all. 

To obtain a true international court with regular sessions it was 
proposed (while not doing away with the existing Court of Arbitra- 
tion) to establish a new " Court of Arbitral Justice," with regular 



yi6 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [1907. 

annual sessions and having fifteen judges, eight of these representing 
the eight great powers, and the other seven representing the thirty- 
four smaller powers by a system of rotation. A large sentiment in 
favor of such a court was manifested, but its actual establishment 
was prevented by the South American States, under the leadership 
of Brazil, these contending that the smaller states ought to have 
permanent representation equal to that of the larger powers. 

The United States felt partly recompensed for the failure of the 
" Court of Arbitral Justice " by the actual establishment of the 
" International Prize Court," with a similar distribution of judges 
to that proposed for the " Court of Arbitral Justice," the smaller 
powers being willing to concede to the great maritime powers a larger 
representation in regard to captures at sea. 

On the question of the new courts, as well as in regard to the 
" Mcdel Treaty," something nearly equivalent has since been actually 
estab'ished under the leadership of the United States. In 1909 
Secretary Knox sent a circular note to a number of the powers sug- 
gesting that so far as the consenting states were concerned the Judges 
of the International Prize Court at The Hague should be invested 
also with the functions of the proposed " Court of Arbitral Justice," 
thus making that Court a " chamber " of the new " Prize Court " — 
the intention being that the larger powers should thus organize the 
Court among themselves with the hope that the smaller states would 
later give their adherence to it. This hope has already been in a meas- 
ure realized. In 1910 it was announced before the Lake Mohonk 
Conference on the authority of Secretary Knox that such a " Court 
of Arbitral Justice " in connection with the International Prize 
Court at The Hague, will probably be established in the near future 
and that when a third Conference of the Nations shall assemble at 
The Hague this will already be in successful operation. 

On the night of the 13th of August, 1906, the city of Brownsville, 
Texas, was the scene of a riot in which it was believed that some 
negro soldiers belonging to the 25th U. S. Infantry regiment quartered 
in the city had fired at random shots into dwellings, and killed or 
wounded several citizens. The affair created much controversy, as it 
was impossible to determine exactly who were the offenders, and any 
attempt at punishment was held to be a discrimination against the 
negro race. After considerable investigation President Roosevelt 
on November 21st, disbanded a whole battalion of the regiment, dis- 
charging three companies of negro soldiers " without honor." Many 



I907.] LABOR AND CAPITAL. 71 7 

protests were heard and later investigations were attempted, but 
little could be absolutely proven; and the President held to his deci- 
sion, although an arrangement was afterwards made allowing any 
soldiers who could prove that they were not implicated in the riot, 
to re-enlist. 

Other serious social or industrial disorders occurred near this 
period. In September, 1906, there were anti-negro riots at Atlanta, 
which resulted in several lynchings, and the city was for several days 
under martial law. 

Difficulties between labor and capital were also frequent. Between 
1881 and 1905, 36,758 strikes in the United States are recorded, with 
1,546 " lockouts " of groups of workmen by employers. The largest 
number of these were in the building trades, but some of the most 
severe and long continued were among the coal miners. Most of 
these were " peaceful strikes," the difficulties being finally adjusted 
by arbitration, or through the " Conciliation Boards " that were 
established in many of the States. A few, however, were accompanied 
by serious social disorders. 

Conspicuous among the latter were the Cripple Creek riots of 
Colorado in 1903-4. These occurred in the productive gold region 
near Pike's Peak, and resulted in armed conflicts between the striking 
miners and the militia, in which many persons were killed and the whole 
region was for some time under martial law. 

The Chicago teamster's strike of 1905, the street car strike of 
Columbus, Ohio, in 1910, and the bituminous coal miners' strike of 
Pennsylvania in the same year, were also accompanied by serious 
violence. Among the strikes which have most affected the public 
interests may be named also the great meat packers' strike of 1904, 
the long printers' strike of 1905, that of the Rapid Transit Company 
of New York in the same year, and those of the shirt waist makers, the 
cloak makers and the express company employees of New York in 1910. 

Of close relation to the meat packers' strike was the indictment 
of the " meat packers' trust " and also the " packing house scandal " 
of 1906, which was begun, or at least intensified by Upton Sinclair's 
novel " The Jungle," which was believed to disclose the unpleasant 
secrets of the Chicago packing-houses. A sensational discussion 
ensued, which was followed by a special message of the President to 
Congress calling for national inspection of stockyards and packing- 
houses. The bill was promptly passed, and October 1, 1906, the 
Federal Meat Inspection Law went into effect. 



718 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION [ T 9°7- 

In 1906, also, Congress passed a Pure Food Law, whicn went into 
effect on the first day of January, 1907. It forbids " the manufac- 
ture, sale, or transportation of adulterated, misbranded, poisonous, 
or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines," and while the practical 
workings of the law have been attended with some inconsistencies 
or inconveniences, it has done much to insure public health and safety. 

In 1906-7 new legislation was directed against the " trusts," 
and many new suits were instituted. Down to 1906 there had been 
thirty-two prosecutions under the Sherman anti-trust law, but it 
was felt that the law was not effective enough, and in most cases the 
proceedings were dropped. 

The application of the word " trust " was also extended to cover 
railroad systems in which a " merger " had been made. In 1904 
Edward H. Harriman, the great railroad promoter, had bought and 
rebuilt the Union Pacific Railroad, and a little later had combined 
with this the Southern Pacific system. The Harriman lines and also 
the Pennsylvania system of coal-carrying railroads were now indicted 
as illegal combinations. Most of the largest manufacturing and com- 
mercial trusts (including the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust, and the 
Standard Oil Company) had already been indicted, although the largest 
" trust " in the world (the United States Steel Corporation, with a 
capital of nearly one and a half billions of dollars) — perhaps be- 
cause of greater publicity in its methods, and a systematized effort 
to reduce the watering of its stocks, escaped the general warfare that 
was being waged upon the corporations. Finally, however, in Octo- 
ber, 191 1, the United States brought suit for the dissolution of this 
trust. 

In 1906 the Elkins anti-rebate law was amended to make the rebate 
offense punishable by imprisonment as well as by fines- Under this 
law many new prosecutions were now begun, both against corpora- 
tions that had received freight rebates, and the railroads that had 
given them. The Hepburn railroad bill was also passed, to regulate 
railroad charges, and enforce the principle that railroads must not 
discriminate in freight charges to different shippers for the same 
class of goods. 

The specific investigation of these matters was now turned over 
largely to the Interstate Commerce Commission, established in 1887. 
The powers of this Commission were also enlarged, the United 
States Courts decreeing that the Interstate Commerce Commission 
'. -• power to compel witnesses to testify even against their own cor- 



I^OS.] ANTI-TRUST LAWS. ^IC) 

porations, and in November, 1906, John D. Rockefeller and other 
Standard Oil officials were called as witnesses in a Standard Oil case 
at Findlay, Ohio. 

The railroads grew excited under the pressure that was being 
placed upon them, and an important conference between the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission and the railroad managers was held in 
Washington. The railroads also called on the President for reassur- 
ance, and in April, 1907, he addressed an assembly of railroad men 
in Washington in a speech which emphasized the power of the national 
government to regulate the carriers of interstate commerce. He 
also made an allusion to Bunyan's " man with the muckrake," which 
made the address famous as " the President's muckrake speech." 

The most celebrated of the lawsuits against the trusts were those 
directed against the Standard Oil Company, which was driven out 
from several States as an illegal corporation. A famous decision 
against the company was given by Judge Landis of Chicago. Under 
the Elkins law the company had been indicted in several prosecu- 
tions with an aggregate of 8,300 counts for accepting railroad rebates, 
the penalty for each being a fine of from $1,000 to $20,000. 
Conviction followed on 1,462 counts, and the maximum fine of 
$29,240,000 was imposed, being the largest fine ever imposed in an 
American court. The case was carried to the United States Court 
of Appeals, which reversed the decision, and later attempts for a 
new trial failed. 

Other famous cases were those of the Tobacco Trust and the 
Sugar Refining Company, the latter of these being heavily fined 
in the United States Courts. Other trusts indicted were the Ice 
Trust, the Bath-tub Trust, the Window-glass Trust, the Oyster Trust, 
the Fertilizer Trust. Altogether, from fifty to sixty corporations 
were put under fine during the closing years of Roosevelt's adminis- 
tration. 

In 19 10 the lower courts, having decreed the dissolution of the 
Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts, the question came to the United 
States Supreme Court for final decision. Long hearings were held, 
and the verdict was delayed by the death of Justice Brewer, but in 
191 1 the Supreme Court gave its final decree on these long-mooted 
questions and also gave a final interpretation to certain clauses in the 
Sherman Anti-trust Law by ordering the dissolution of these trusts 
into their component parts. 

A not unnatural result of the war on corporations was a financial 



j2o Roosevelt's administration. [1908. 

panic near the close of 1907, which happily was of short duration, 
and followed by quick recovery. On October 21st, the Knickerbocker 
Trust Company, a banking corporation which controlled the stock 
of several other banks, suspended payment. Its president resigned 
and a few days later committed suicide. A " run " on banks followed, 
and fifteen New York banks suspended payment. On November 
2d, an important conference was held at the house of J. P. Morgan. 
Consultations were also held at Washington, and on November 17th, 
the President announced that fifty millions of Panama Canal bonds 
would be issued, with interest-bearing certificates. The amount of 
these bonds was later changed to twenty-five millions; but the 
bonds were quickly taken, and the President and Secretary-of-the- 
Treasury Cortelyou received many congratulations on this effective 
means of financial relief. 

It is pleasant to turn from the strife between capital and labor, 
and the war against corporations, to the benefactions that with 
increasing frequency have been given by men and women of wealth 
to education, philanthropy and research. Between 1893 an d 1906 
about nine hundred million dollars were given in America to private 
individuals to public causes, and in the next four years many millions 
more were added. 

The first of the so-called " Educational Foundations " was the 
Peabody Fund of three and a half millions, given in 1867 by George 
Peabody for education in the Southern States. It was followed by 
the Slater Fund of $1,000,000, given in 1882 by John F. Slater of 
Connecticut, " for uplifting the lately emancipated population of the 
Southern States and their posterity." The Anna T. James Foundation 
also provided another million for negro education. 

The two largest givers have been John D. Rockefeller and Andrew 
Carnegie, and as these have often conditioned their gifts upon the 
raising of a like sum by the recipients, the total amounts thus gained 
for public purposes has been very great. 

Rockefeller's largest gifts have been to education. From a 
financial point of view he is the creator of Chicago University, his 
total gifts to this institution amounting to $35,000,000. Rockefeller's 
largest gift at any one time was one of $32,000,000 to the General 
Education Board " to promote education in the United States without 
distinction of race, sect or creed." Later his gifts to that Board were 
increased to $43,000,000. Other Rockefeller benefactions include 
cne of seven millions in 1903 for research in regard to the cause 



I908.] EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY. 721 

and cure of tuberculosis; a million in 1909 to fight the hookworm 
disease in the Southern States; and several millions to the Rocke- 
feller Medical Institute and Hospital in New York. In 1910 the 
Rockefeller Institute for Research was opened in connection with the 
Rockefeller Hospital, with an endowment of six and a half millions. 
In March, 1910, announcement was made of a proposed Rockefeller 
Foundation " to promote the well-being and advance the civilization 
of the peoples of the world, to disseminate knowledge and to prevent 
and relieve suffering." A federal charter for this was asked of Con- 
gress, but the highly generalized nature of the objects proposed led 
to some discussion and the matter was delayed. 

Carnegie's earlier gifts were mostly to establish free libraries, and 
" Carnegie Libraries " may now be seen in all parts of the United 
States and in many foreign countries. One of the most important 
of Carnegie's benefactions was the establishment of the " Carnegie 
Institute " of Washington, with an endowment of ten millions, to 
which two millions more were added later as " an institution to 
encourage investigation, research and discovery." He also founded 
and heavily endowed the " Carnegie Technological School " of 
Pittsburgh. Other bequests of his are: The Carnegie Hero Fund of 
five millions, established in 1904, to give rewards to those who have 
risked their lives for others and to the widows and children of those 
who have sacrificed their lives in saving others; " a college Professors' 
Pension Fund of ten millions, given in 1905 and made available for 
the retiring of aged professors in colleges having no religious bias and 
maintaining certain standards of scholarship; to this several millions 
were added later to provide for professors in State universities. The 
latest of his large benefactions is the Peace Fund of $10,000,000, 
given in December, 19 10. He also provided for the erection of the 
" Palace of Peace " at The Hague, and the " Bureau of American 
Republics' " Building at Washington. 

Another Peace Foundation was established a few years ago in 
Boston for the distribution of peace literature, to which Edwin 
Ginn gave an endowment of $1,000,000. Other large givers that may 
be named are Mrs. Russell Sage, who established the " Russell Sage 
Foundation," with an endowment of ten millions for varied philan- 
thropic work, especially in promoting the welfare of child life; Mrs. 
E. H. Harriman, whose gift of 10,000 acres of land and $1,000,000 for 
endowment is to create a great State Park along the Palisades of the 
Hudson River; and John S. Kennedy, who left at his death numerous 



J22 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. [1908. 

large bequests for missionary and philanthropic work, chiefly under 
Presbyterian auspices. Many other persons might be named, who 
with perhaps less financial resources have yet made large bequests 
in aid of human progress. 

A large Tercentenary Exposition was held at Jamestown, Virginia, 
from April to November, 1907, the display being largely of a naval, 
character. On May 13th special excercises to commemorate the 300th 
anniversary of the landing of the English in America were held at the 
Exposition grounds. 

On December 16th, a fleet of sixteen battleships and ten smaller 
vessels, the strongest fleet ever assembled under the United States 
flag, left Hampton Roads under the command of Rear Admiral Evans, 
for a journey around the world. The general itinerary was by 
way of Trinidad, Rio Janeiro, the Strait of Magellan, Callao, San 
Francisco, Hawaii, Samoa, the Philippines, Japan, China, the Suez 
Canal, and the Mediterranean; back to the United States — a cruise 
of 13,772 miles, which occupied 135 days. Everywhere the fleet was 
received with enthusiastic demonstrations, and this display of naval 
strength in time of peace was held to be of much value in increasing 
the respect for America among the nations of the East. The return- 
ing fleet entered Hampton Roads on February 21, 1909, and on the 
following day it was reviewed by the President. 

At Port Said, however, several of the ships were detached from the 
fleet for an important relief expedition. On December 28, 1908, an 
appalling earthquake occurred in Sicily and Italy, in which the cities of 
Messina and Reggio were almost wholly destroyed; about two hundred 
thousand (200,000) lives were lost and more than a billion dollars' 
worth of property destroyed. The sympathies of the world were 
aroused for the stricken locality; and three battleships and two 
supply boats of the American fleet just leaving the Suez Canal were 
detached and ordered to Naples to assist in the rescue work. The 
American Red Cross ship Bayern was also sent to Italy with 
supplies; and the Celtic, a supply ship about to start from New York 
to join the returning American fleet with enough navy rations to 
support on an emergency basis 40,000 people for a month, was ordered 
to carry its stores to Messina instead. Many private funds were 
collected and Congress appropriated $800,000 to aid in the relief 
measures. 

Among the peaceful achievements of 1907 may be noted the 
accomplishment of the success of wireless telegraphy. A patent on 



I908.] CONSERVATION MOVEMENT. J2$ 

the process of telegraphy by electro-magnetic waves had been secured 
by Marconi, an Italian inventor, in 1896, but many improvements 
had been needed to make the system thoroughly practical. In Octo- 
ber, 1907, a regular transatlantic wireless service was established 
between Ireland and Nova Scotia, and President Roosevelt signalized 
the event by sending a message from Wellfleet, Massachusetts, to the 
coast of England. The value of this new mode of telegraphy had 
been demonstrated in the San Francisco disaster of 1906, when all 
wires were down and wireless signals were used in summoning re- 
lief. Another triumph of wireless telegraphy occurred January 23, 
1909, when the White Star steamship Republic was rammed by the 
Italian liner Florida in a fog off Nantucket Island, and a wireless 
message of extreme danger brought the White Star steamer Baltic 
to the aid of the sinking vessel. Among 1,000 lives in peril only six 
were lost, and these from the collision and not by drowning. On 
February 16th, the House of Representatives passed a bill providing 
that all ocean-going ships carrying more than fifty passengers and 
traveling two hundred or more miles, should be equipped with a wire- 
less instrument and operator. 

The so-called "Conservation Movement" was organized June 8, 
1908, by the appointment by President Roosevelt of a National 
Conservation Commission, divided into four sections, of land re- 
sources, water resources, forest resources, and mineral resources. 

The word "Conservation," and the thing for which it stands, were 
somewhat new in American politics, since from the beginning of the 
government until about 1905 the accepted policy of the nation had 
been to encourage private enterprise by turning over public resources 
at low rate for private development. For some years, however, 
a feeling had been growing that more should be done to prevent 
waste, and turn this national wealth to better account for the public 
advantage. An important step in this direction was taken in 1881 
by the organization of the Forest Division of the Department of 
Agriculture, later known as the "Forest Service," of which Gifford 
Pinchot became the head. 

Among the various States also organizations were formed for the 
care of forests, waterways, etc., and in 1907 the President appointed 
an "Inland Waterways Commission," which was afterwards reorgan- 
ized as the "National Waterways Commission." Soon after their 
appointment the members of this Inland Waterways Commission took 
a trip of inspection on the Mississippi River, and it was then sug- 



724 Roosevelt's administration. [1908. 

gested, subject to the President's approval, that they should hold a 
convention on this subject at Washington. In taking up this matter 
the President determined to call a convention of governors of all the 
States to meet the Inland Waterways Commission, and invited all 
members of Congress also to be present. 

One outcome of this important meeting was the National Con- 
servation Commission already mentioned. This Commission organ- 
ized promptly, choosing for Chairman Gifford Pinchot, who had 
done more than almost anyone else to call the attention of the govern- 
ment to the need of such conservation measures. The movement 
spread rapidly and in December, 1908, a great Conservation Congress 
was held at Washington, at which twenty-two State Conservation 
Commissions and other organizations formed to co-operate with the 
National Commission were represented At a later conference, 
Canada, Mexico and Newfoundland were also represented in a move- 
ment for the general conservation of the natural resources of all 
North America. 

Another national movement somewhat related to the Conserva- 
tion Movement is known as the Reclamation Service. In 1902 
Congress passed a Reclamation Act which provided that the proceeds 
from the sale of public lands in the arid regions of the United States 
should be used for the construction of irrigation works. Under this 
act thirty great projects have been begun, most of these being great 
masonry dams, the largest ever built in this country. Of those 
recently finished the most prominent are the Roosevelt Dam on Salt 
River, Arizona, and the Pathfinder and Shoshone Dams of Wyoming, 
the last named being the highest dam in the world. In 19 10 the 
Reclamation Act was superseded by an Act of Congress appropri- 
ating $20,000,000 for the completion of those works already under 
way if not sufficiently provided for by the former Reclamation 
Act. 

The Republican National Convention met at Chicago in June, 
1908, and nominated William Howard Taft of Ohio for President, 
with James S. Sherman of New York as Vice-president. Three weeks 
later the Democratic Convention met at Denver, where William J. 
Bryan received for the third time the Democratic nomination for 
President with John W. Kern of Indiana for Vice-president. 

In the Taft-Bryan campaign no issues were very sharply drawn. 
The questions most prominently before the country related to the 
revision of the tariff, conservation, and legislation regarding labor 



1908] 



ROOSEVELT S SUCCESSOR 



725 



questions and the trusts; and measures regarding these were in 
some degree favored by both parties. 

On November 3d the Republican candidates were elected, and 
the following March, Taft was inaugurated in a driving snowstorm, 
this being the first time since Jackson's second inauguration in 1833 
when the ceremony had not taken place in the open air. Ex-presi- 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

WILLIAM H. TAFT 



dent Roosevelt now retired to Oyster Bay, N. Y., to get ready for a 
projected hunting trip in Africa. 

William Howard Taft, the twenty-seventh President of the United 
States, was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept. 15, 1857. After gradu- 



J26 taft's administration. 1909.] 

ating at Yale College, and the Law School of Cincinnati, he prac- 
tised law for a time, and from 1887 to 1890 was a Justice in the 
Superior Court of Ohio. In 1890 he became Solicitor-General of 
the United States, and was Judge of the Sixth United States Circuit 
from 1892 to 1900. In March, 1900, he was appointed to organize 
civil government in the Philippines, and July 4, 1901, became the 
first civil governor of those islands. In 1903 he returned to America 
to become Secretary of War under President Roosevelt. In 1904, 
and again in 1909, he was sent to Panama to investigate questions 
relating to the canal zone. In 1907 with a congressional delegation 
he revisited the Philippines, taking part in the opening of the new 
National Assembly, and also made a tour around the world. In 
1908 he was elected President of the United States. 

Like his predecessor, President Taft adopted the policy of 
making long journeys to various parts of the country, where he 
spoke freely in public, and emphasized the proposed measures of 
his administration. 

In the fall of 1909 he took a 13,000 mile journey through the 
West and South, and on October 6th he met and exchanged 
friendly greetings with President Diaz of Mexico on both sides of 
the Rio Grande — at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad, Mexico — Presi- 
dent Diaz being the first foreign executive to visit the United 
States, and Taft the second President to ignore the precedents of 
117 years in regard to the chief executive stepping outside the 
national domain. 

Almost the first official act of President Taft was the calling of 
a special session of Congress to revise the McKinley tariff of 1890. 
For many years the tariff question had been always with us, as an 
important issue between parties. But in 1909 not only the Demo- 
crats but many Republicans as well, owing to the rise in prices of 
living and other causes, had reached the conclusion that extensive 
tariff changes should be made, and the promise of such revision 
was made the chief plank in the Republican platform on which 
Taft was elected. 

Accordingly on March II, 1909, the 61 st Congress assembled 
and was in session until into August. The tariff bill, introduced 
into the lower house by Mr. Payne and supported in the Senate 
with many amendments by Senator Aldrich, occupied most of its 
attention, and elicited much difference of opinion as to whether 
the promised revision meant "revision downwards" or merely re- 



I9°9-] TAFT'S ADMINISTRATION. J2J 

adjustment. But on August 5th the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill be- 
came a law. 

The new tariff provided for free trade with the Philippines, 
and made many specific changes in tariff rates. Its most import- 
ant provision, however, was that of minimum and maximum tariff 
rates, the former being supposed to be sufficient for protection, 
and the latter adding an excess of 25 per cent, ad valorem for na- 
tions that should maintain tariff distinctions against the United 
States. This "penalty scale," already in use in some European 
countries, would in some cases amount to an increase of 50 to 100 
per cent, above the normal scale of duties. The question of 
minimum and maximum rates at once threatened collision with 
certain foreign powers, especially with Germany; but in February, 
1 910, an agreement was reached which gave to that country the 
minimum rates. A controversy also arose with Canada, which had 
long been in a state of tension regarding trade with the United 
States. But on March 30, 1910, Canada and Australia, the last 
countries with which satisfactory arrangements were to be made, 
were both accorded the minimum tariff, and it was now extended 
to the entire world. 

Discussion as to specific duties, however, gave increasing irrita- 
tion in the United States itself. Prices continued to rise, and not 
only Democrats, but many Republicans, claimed that the tariff 
revision had not given the needed relief, and that, especially on 
the necessaries of life, the customs rates were too high. The high 
protectionists, however, declared that the high prices had nothing 
to do with tariffs, but were the natural result of prosperous busi- 
ness conditions, and the large output of gold from the mines of 
the world. But the tariff questions, conservation, and some other 
party disputes, brought their legitimate fruits in certain marked 
political events of the following year. 

These party disputes began with the assembling of Congress 
immediately after President Taft's inauguration, in the form of 
organized opposition to the House Committee on Rules, and to 
Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the House. A set of rules for 
party management, devised by Speaker Reed in 1890, gave to the 
Committee on Rules (sometimes called the "Steering Commit- 
tee"), and especially to the Speaker who made the Committee ap- 
pointments, large powers in determining what legislation should 
be admitted. The system grew up because it facilitated business, 



728 taft's administration. [ j 909. 

but a movement in opposition had for some time been growing 
in the Republican party. The opponents now became known as 
"Insurgents," though they themselves preferred to be called "pro- 
gressive Republicans," while the "regular Republicans" who rallied 
to the support of the Speaker became known as the "Standpatters." 

In both Houses of Congress the spirit of opposition rose to un- 
expected heights, and on March' 15, 1910, it culminated in an 
open attack on Speaker Cannon, in which about forty "Insur- 
gents" voted with the most of the Democrats to overrule a formal 
decision of the Speaker. Then followed a strenuous contest of four 
days, ending with a vote that the Committee on Rules should be 
reorganized and the Speaker left out of it. It was thought that 
this would be followed by the resignation of the Speaker. Mr. 
Cannon, however, refused to resign, but intimated his willingness 
to put a vote for his own removal. But as this would mean the 
election of a new Speaker, and as the "Insurgents" were not will- 
ing to give this office to a Democrat, the motion to declare the 
chair vacant was lost. During the remaining sessions of the 61st 
Congress the power of the Speaker and of the House Committee 
was less in evidence, and the President and his advisers became a 
larger directing force in securing the admission of subjects of legis- 
lation. 

During the year 1909 man)' anniversary observances were cele- 
brated in various parts of the country, most of these being the 
centenaries of the birth of persons of distinction. If the predic- 
tions of old astrologers had any basis, the year 1809 must have 
been a time of important planetary conjunctions and other celes- 
tial phenomena, for an unusually large number of famous lives 
began during that year. 

The most important of these centenaries of 1909 was that of jl 
February 12, when the birth of Abraham Lincoln was celebrated I 
all over the country. The most interesting of these Lincoln cele- 
brations, however, was the one at the Lincoln birthplace near I 
Hodgenville, Ky., where the corner-stone of a memorial building I 
(to inclose the original Lincoln log-cabin) was laid by President j 
Roosevelt. On the same day the Darwin centenary that was being 
celebrated in England was observed in America by the New York 
Academy of Science, and received notice also at many other places 
in connection with the Lincoln memorials. 

August 12, 1908, the 400th anniversary of the landing of Ponce 



JQ09-] LINCOLN CENTENARY. 729 

de Leon was observed with great demonstrations in Porto Rico. 
In 1909 also was celebrated the discovery of Lake Champlain in 
1609 by the old French navigator. But by far the largest and 
most imposing of the centennial observances of the year 1909 was 
the Hudson-Fulton celebration of New York, commemorating 
both the 300th anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson River, 
and the 100th anniversary of steam navigation. It opened at 
New York Sept. 25th, closing two weeks later at Albany and 
Troy. The spectacular opening of the exhibition was a great 
naval parade, miles in length, led by reproductions of Hudson's 
Half-Moon and Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont. These were 
followed by fifty war vessels, twenty of these being from nine 
foreign countries. During the two weeks devoted to this celebra- 
tion there were military and civic parades on shore, with feats of 
aviation, and illuminated river displays at night; and on Septem- 
ber 27th the corner-stone of the Hudson Memorial Building was 
laid on Spuyten Duyvil Hill by Governor Hughes of New York. 

On June 1, 1909, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was 
opened at Seattle, President Taft giving the signal by pressing a 
gold key at the White House. Between this date and the close 
of the exhibition the last of October, many excursions to Alaska 
were participated in by Americans from all parts of the country. 

In the summer of 1908 Commander Robert E. Peary of the 
United States Navy sailed from Sydney, N. S., on the steamer 
Roosevelt for his sixth organized expedition for the discovery of 
the North Pole. 

On September 1st, 1909, another Arctic explorer, Dr. Fred- 
erick A. Cook from Brooklyn, N. Y., telegraphed from the Shet- 
land Islands to Copenhagen that on April 21, 1908, in company 
with a party of Esquimaux he had succeeded in reaching the pole. 
The news excited the liveliest interest all over the world, an inter- 
est which was intensified five days later by a telegram sent from 
Labrador by Lieut. Peary, that on April 6, 1909, accompanied by 
a negro named Henson and four Esquimaux he had accomplished 
his life-long quest and "nailed the Stars and Stripes to the North 
Pole." 

Before many days public sentiment had divided itself into two 
camps on the question of whether to Cook or to Peary should be 
awarded the credit of being the "Discoverer of the Pole," and 
statements began to be heard among the Peary adherents that it 
was impossible that Dr. Cook should have reached the Pole under 



730 



DISCOVERY OF NORTH POLE. 



[1909. 



the conditions that had been stated. Dr. Cook, however, was re- 
ceived at Copenhagen with the highest honors, and on September 
2 1 st a public ovation was given him in New York, to which was 
added a few days later "the freedom of the city." Doubt, 
however, was cast on Dr. Cook's statements by the publication of 
proofs that his earlier claim that he had climbed to the summit 
of Mount McKinley in Alaska, and left certain records there, was 
false. 

Interest now centered itself on the examination of the records 
of the two explorers. After much delay Dr. Cook's records were 
sent to the University of Copenhagen which had refused to waive 
its rights to a first examination. In a very brief time this Uni- 







From the North Pole by Robert E. Peary, copyright, 19 10, Frederick A. Stokes Company. 
PEARY'S SHIP THE ROOSEVELT AT CAPE SHERIDAN. 



versity announced that Dr. Cook had not presented any satisfactory 
proof that he had really reached the pole. Public confidence was 
withdrawn, and Dr. Cook himself sailed for Europe and was in 
retirement for about a year. He afterwards returned to New 
York, and tried to win sympathy by the confession that he was 
not absolutely sure whether he reached the pole or not. This 
confession he has since withdrawn, 



1909.] taft's administration. 731 

Meanwhile Peary's records were examined and approved by 
the National Geographic Society, and these findings were formally 
endorsed by official scientific and geographical bodies in London, 
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Brussels, Antwerp, Genoa, Dresden, 
St. Petersburg, and Edinburgh. He was awarded gold medals 
by various organizations, and was afterwards given the thanks of 
Congress and retired from the Navy with the rank of Rear- 
Admiral. 

The scientific results of Peary's expedition were apparently 
not large, yet established the fact that the pole is located in a field 
of drifting ice without any land in the vicinity. 

The interest felt in the discovery of the North Pole increased 
the public interest in antarctic exploration as well. In 1909 Lieu- 
tenant Ernest Shackleton of England made a courageous dash to 
a point within 11 1 miles of the South Pole, an achievement for 
which he was afterwards knighted by King Edward. In 1910 the 
Peary Arctic Club of New York, with the National Geographic 
Society, set on foot an Antarctic Expedition, making use again 
of Peary's Ship, the Roosevelt, under the command of Capt. 
Bartlett. 

During the first session of the 61 st Congress in 1909, a new 
dispute over conservation broke out in an acute form. The new 
Secretary of the Interior was Richard A. Ballinger, who had been 
commissioner of public lands during Roosevelt's administration, and 
had afterwards been counsel for the applicants in certain land claims. 

Secretary Ballinger now announced that he should make no 
decisions personally in disputed land claims, but leave these ques- 
tions to his subordinates. At this, Gifford Pinchot, the head of 
the Eorest Service, who had been the chief advocate of a strong 
policy of conservation, openly attacked Secretary Ballinger on the 
charge that he was opposed to conservation, and was trying to en- 
gineer through the land office certain fraudulent or doubtful claims 
in the Rocky Mountains and in the coal fields of Alaska. 

The President at first attempted to mediate between these op- 
ponents, or to remain neutral; but when on Jan. 6, 1910, a 
letter of Pinchot's reflecting severely on Secretary Ballinger was 
made public, the President at once removed Pinchot from the head 
of the Forest Service. About the same time Congress provided 
for an investigation of the Ballinger charges by a joint House and 
Senate Committee, and a few days later Pinchot was elected pres- 



73-2 NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES. [1909. 

ident of the National Conservation Committee. 

After long temporizing a minority of the Investigating Com- 
mittee reported in September, 1909, that the charges against 
Ballinger were sustained, but the majority withheld their report 
until after the fall elections. Meanwhile pressure was put on 
President Taft for Ballinger's retirement from the secretaryship, 
but the President refused to dismiss a Cabinet officer against 
whom no charges had been proven. On December 5th, election 
being over, the majority report of the Investigating Committee 
was published, exonerating Ballinger from wrong-doing, but sug- 
gesting new provisions for the care of the public resources. Criti- ' 
cisms of Secretary Ballinger's course in regard to conservation 1 
continued to be heard, however, from the progressive wing of the 
Republican party, and at last in March, 191 1, Secretary Ballinger I 
resigned his office as Secretary of the Interior and Walter L. 
Fisher was appointed in his place. 

The decision of The Hague Tribunal on the so-called New- I 
foundland Fisheries' Case, given September 7, 1910, closed a long I 
international controversy and is considered the most important de- 
cision ever rendered by The Hague Court of Arbitration. For | 
almost a hundred years the rights of Americans to fish in the j 
Newfoundland waters had been a subject of dispute between the 
United States and Canada and Newfoundland. The treaty of J 
1783 between the United States and Great Britain gave this right 
to America, but it was held that this right was lost by the war of 
1 81 2. The treaty of 1818, however, allowed to Americans the If 
right of "deep-sea fisheries," anywhere outside of a "three-mile I 
limit" from the shore, and also of "inshore fisheries," that is, I 
within the three-mile limit on certain coasts. Most of the dis- I 
putes that arose depended on the interpretation of the "three- 
mile limit," that is, whether the line was to follow the sinuosities j! 
of the coast, or in the case of bays to go from headland to head- l 
land, thus shutting off the whole bay, even if parts of it were more | 
than three miles from any shore. 

In 1904 certain new elements entered into the controversy, as |t 
the Newfoundland government had prescribed rules limiting the 
modes and the times of taking fish, and insisted that American 
fishermen should conform to all these British regulations. A 
temporary "modus vivendi" had sometimes given peace for a 
time, but only to be followed by new controversies soon after- 
wards. 



I909.] NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES. 733 

In 1908 the United States negotiated an arbitration treaty with 
Great Britain, in accordance with which this long-standing contro- 
versy was submitted to The Hague Tribunal, and a series of seven 
questions was presented relating to the interpretation of the treaty 
of 1 Si 8. The case was argued at The Hague during the summer 
of 1 910, its most remarkable feature being a notable six days' 
speech from the leading American Counsel, Hon. Elihu Root. 

The decision of the Court gave five points in favor of the 
United States, and two important points in favor of Great Britain, 
sustaining the sovereign right of Great Britain to make regulations 
for the fisheries provided that these did not interfere with any 
specific treaty rights. The decision was accepted on the whole 
with satisfaction in both countries, and was considered a striking 
evidence of the value of The Hague Court in the settlement of in- 
ternational difficulties. 

Early in 1909 a Commission was sent from America to investi- 
gate the conditions of Liberia. This negro republic, founded by 
the joint action of the United States government and the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society, is settled along the coast by the de- 
scendants of free blacks who went there from the United States 
before i860, these and the natives whom they have civilized now 
amounting to about 50,000 persons. But the large "Hinterland," 
or back country, is occupied by a million and a half of savages ; 
and the inability of the republic to control these aborigines has 
been the ostensible cause of recurring boundary disputes with 
Great Britain and France, whose African possessions are contigu- 
ous to Liberia. 

After losing to these two powers about 150 of her 500 miles of 
coast line, Liberia in 1908 officially requested the United States to 
aid her in maintaining her national independence. 

The investigating" commission sent in 1909 to Liberia reported 
that "the Liberians had not retrograded in their civilization, and 
had carried on an orderly government," but that they needed and 
should receive the aid of the United States to withstand adverse 
conditions. Recommendations to this effect were made by President 
Taft and Secretary of State Knox. Little has yet been done, al- 
though it is generally conceded that the United States is under obli- 
gations to protect Liberia from outside aggression, and to help her 
develop her natural resources. 

Soon after his retirement from the presidency, President 



734 taft's administration. [1909. 

Roosevelt sailed with his son Kermit and several scientists for 
Mombasa, Africa. From there he penetrated into the interior 
and spent nearly a year in hunting "big game," sending back 
many valuable contributions to the National Museum at Wash- 
ington. 

On March 14, 1910, he arrived at Khartoum, Egypt, on his 
homeward trip, and immediately became again a factor in interna- 
tional affairs. On March 24th he addressed a company of stu- 
dents at Cairo, upholding British rule, and giving some offense to 
the Egyptian nationalists; and May 31st made a speech at the Guild- 
hall in London in which he commented freely on the British Colonial 
policy in Egypt. 

His advice to foreign officials was taken on the whole in good 
part, and it was explained later that both of these speeches had 
been read in advance by statesmen in authority. He made ad- 
dresses at the Sorbonne, Paris, at Christiana, and at Berlin which 
attracted wide notice. He was formally received at several foreign 
courts, but declined an interview with the Pope because the Papal 
Secretary of State expected from him a pledge that he would not 
attend a meeting of the Methodist mission at Rome. He was also 
the special envoy of the United States at the funeral of King 
Edward VII on May 20th. On June 18th he arrived in New 
York, where a great public reception awaited him, and then retired 
to his country home at Oyster Bay, N. Y., to take up his duties 
as contributing editor of the Outlook, and writing up his African 
experiences. 

But it would have been unnatural for him to remain long out 
of the political field. The failure of the New York Legislature to 
pass a direct primary law which Governor Hughes was advocating, 
was interpreted as a rebuff to Roosevelt, who had expressed his 
approval of the measure. A little later Roosevelt was nominated 
as the temporary chairman of the New York Republican conven- 
tion, but Vice-President Sherman was chosen above him. Colonel 
Roosevelt's friends resented this action, but when on August 31st 
in a public speech at Ossawatomie, Kan., he advocated "progres- 
sive republicanism," and gave expression to certain personal poli- 
cies, some of the admirers of the ex-President began to say, "The 
Colonel has gone too far." 

The fall election of 1910 showed in a decided manner the for- 
midable split that the tariff, conservation, and other issues had 
made in the Republican party, the result being a "political land- 



I9Q9-] 



AVIATION. 



735 



slide," in which several States heretofore considered staunchly 
Republican, elected Democratic governors, while in the election 
for the 626. Congress the House of Representatives gained a Demo- 
cratic majority, with a large increase of Democratic representation 
in the Senate as well. 

Nothing aroused more popular interest during the years 1909 
and 1 910 than the rapid development of the art of aerial naviga- 
tion. 

A few years ago the standard form of apparatus for this kind 
of locomotion was the lighter-than-air "balloon," having no means 
of progress except by "air currents." To these were added some 
years ago the "dirigible balloon," provided with motors and capa- 
ble of being steered at the will of the operator; the best known of 
these "dirigibles" being those of the "Zeppelin" type used largely 
in Germany. In 1908 the United States government purchased its 
first and only dirigible balloon, of the "Captain Baldwin" make. It 

was intended for 
use in war, but 
has had no service 
except for pur- 
poses of experi- 
ment and spectac- 
ular effects. 

In October, 
1 9 1 o, Walter 
Wellman, who 
had made several 
attempts to reach 
the North Pole in 
a dirigible airship, 
started from At- 
lantic City on an 
adventurous voy- 
age to cross the 
Atlantic Ocean, 
having on board 
also three other 
persons, including 
a wireless tele- 
graph operator. In 
consequence of a defect in the apparatus, however, the crew soon 




J2>6 TAFT's ADMINISTRATION. [1909. 

lost control of the airship, which was abandoned when three days 
c ut from the shore, the men being picked up by a passing vessel. 

But the greatest triumphs in air-navigation were in the newer 
field of aviation, that is, the art of flying by heavier-than-air ma- 
chines. Of these also there are several types, known as monoplanes, 
biplanes, etc. 

Experiments in aviation had been made in a desultory manner 
for many years, but with little practical result, until in 1900 the 
Wright brothers, of Ohio, developed their new method of "wing- 
warping," by which stability and control were gained, and after this 
the art developed with rapid strides. 

New "world records" for distance, altitude, sustained periods 
of flight, passenger-carrying, etc., followed each other with aston- 
ishing rapidity. In 1910 more than fifty aviation "meets" were 
held in America, the most important of these being the one at 
Belmont Park, Long Island, New York, in October. 

Some sad casualties occurred, several of the most daring 
aviators having lost their lives through accident. But the devel- 
opment of the art and science of flying went on with unabated 
ardor. 

In 1 910 much interest was felt in the expected reappearance 
of Halley's comet, this comet being the first that was known to re- 
volve in an elliptic orbit about the sun, and the first to have its 
orbit calculated. It was first distinctly recognized by Halley in 
1682, and since that time had reappeared regularly at intervals of 
about 75 years, its last appearance being in 1835-6. 

About Jan. 16, 1910, while the scientific world was awaiting 
with eagerness the coming of Halley's comet, a new cometary body 
(named Comet A, 1910) appeared, being first seen at Johannes- 
burg and the Orange River Colony, South Africa, and later becom- 
ing visible with fine effects in America as well. Some weeks 
later Halley's comet duly appeared, the earth passing through the 
plane of the comet's tail on May 18. There was much cloudy 
weather during the comet's visit, and while some interesting 
observations were taken, the general public felt disappointment in 
regard to the expected spectacular effects. 

The 13th decennial census of the United States was taken 
during the year 1910, the statistics gathered being more full and 
explicit than had ever before been collected. The enumeration of 
population showed the total number in the United States proper 



I9O9.] . ADVANCE OF CIVILIZATION. Jt>7 

to be 91,972,266. Increased by Alaska, Hawaii and Porto Rico, 
the number was 93,402,151, while the inclusion of the Philippines 
and all other United States territory gave an estimated total of 
between 101 and 102 millions of people. 

With the publication of the new census figures in December, 
19 10, the minds of the country naturally turned to a summing up 
of the changes and results of the first decade of the twentieth 
century. While the political events were not so cataclysmal as 
those which marked the first decade of the nineteenth century, 
when Napoleon was changing the map of Europe, yet the effects 
of the Boer War, the China-Boxer movement, the Russo-Japan 
War, and the Turkish Revolution, made large changes in the 
political relations of the world. 

But in less spectacular, yet fully as important fields, the decade 
was an era of almost unprecedented changes in the life of the civi- 
lized world. In scientific progress, in social movements, in the 
attitude of the thoughts of men toward questions of the deepest 
human significance, there has never been an era when advancement 
was more rapid or organized effort so widespread and so successful. 

The study of social science, of economics, and new modes of 
philanthropy showed itself in new efforts for child welfare, juvenile 
courts, public playgrounds, increase of hospital service, district 
nursing associations, and new efforts for the suppression of pauper- 
ism and of crime. 

The discussion of the scientific and the moral bearings of vivi- 
section showed an increased attention to the relations of men with 
the animal life of the world. 

New modes of transportation and the discussion of the racial 
questions, as well as the general progress of human thought, have 
been bringing the whole world together into a better understanding 
of the reciprocal relations of humanity as a whole. 

Nothing was more marked than the changes in the public atti- 
tude toward bodily health, as shown in the study of preventive 
medicine, and in efforts to limit the spread of infectious diseases. 
Public regulations to protect the purity of air, of water and of 
milk, the medical inspection of schools, the abolition of public 
drinking cups, laboratory research into the cause and cure of germ 
diseases, war on the house fly, the mosquito and rats as the 
carriers of disease, and on insect pests which attack vegetation, 
new achievements in surgery — in all these fields the conditions of 
the world had been practically revolutionized within a few years. 



738 taft's administration. [1909. 

Health had become a moral question. A virtual conquest of some 
of the most deadly diseases seemed nearly assured. Infant mor- 
tality had declined and the age limit of life has been perceptibly 
lengthening. Conservation of the nation's resources had found its 
highest field in the conservation of humanity itself,' and it was a safer 
world to live in than it was even so recently as the opening of the 
twentieth century. 

The historical view of the decade would be incomplete without 
some notice of the great events of the religious world. The mis- 
sionary movement, both interdenominational and international, 
made great progress during these years, being introduced by a 
great Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York in 1900, 
and culminating in 1 910 by a larger World's Missionary Conference 
in Edinburgh, at which nearly 500 delegates from America were in 
attendance, representing sixty missionary societies of the United 
States and Canada. In October, 19 10, the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the oldest of the great foreign 
missionary organizations of America, held its centennial anniver- 
sary in Boston, and in the Spring of 191 1 a large missionary 
exposition, entitled "The World in Boston," was held in that 
city. Other evidences of the increasing interest felt in world-wide 
missions were shown by the organization of the Layman's Mission- 
ary Movement, the Student Volunteer Movement, and Brother- 
hoods established in various churches. 

A movement looking toward the union of religious sects was 
shown by a great Convention for the Federation of Churches, held 
at Carnegie Hall, New York, in November, 1905, at which thirty 
denominations united to form the Federal Council of Churches of 
America. 

During the decade the Northern Presbyterian Church and the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church came together in organic union, 
while other efforts for church union, even if not immediately suc- 
cessful, did much to unify the religious sentiments and the relations 
of the Protestant denominations of America. 

A growing feeling that religion should hold closer relations to 
the cure of bodily ills was shown in various religious or semi- 
religious organizations based more or less directly upon ideas of 
mental healing. The use of psychotherapy, "New Thought" 
philosophies, "The Emmanuel Movement," as well as the found- 
ing of various religious bodies preaching doctrines of miraculous 



I9I0-] WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 739 

or Divine healing, were all characteristic of the thought of the 
period. 

In 1901 John Alexander Dowie, who some years before had 
started in Chicago the "Catholic Apostolical Church in Zion" on 
principles of Divine Healing, organized a religious community at 
Zion City which grew rapidly in numbers and in material wealth. 
In 1903 Dowie proclaimed himself as "Elijah the Restorer," and 
in 1904, he with about 4.000 of his followers undertook a spec- 
tacular evangelical campaign in New York City. He failed, how- 
ever, to gain the support of the metropolis, and this failure marked 
the beginning of Dowie's decline as a religious leader. In 1906 
he was deposed from his leadership in Zion City, on charges of 
corrupt practices, and with the announcement that he would build 
a new Zion City elsewhere, he retired to Texas, where he died the 
next year. 

But the most remarkable of these combinations of theology 
with therapeutics was the movement known as "Christian Science," 
of which Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy was the "Discoverer and Found- 
er." "The Church of Christ, Scientist" was founded in 1879. In 
1906 it had 652 branches of "The Mother Church" making a total 
of 930 congregations in America and other countries. The text- 
book of the denomination, entitled "Science and Health, or Key to 
the Scriptures," first published in 1875, had in 1906 passed through 
390 editions of 1,000 copies each. The sales of this book and 
the other Christian Science publications brought large wealth both 
to Mrs. Eddy personally and to the church, and a magnificent 
Christian Science Temple was erected in Boston as head- 
quarters of the denomination. In December, 19 10, Mrs. Eddy died 
at the age of 89, giving the bulk of her large fortune to the 
church of which she was the founder, and her death was followed 
by much litigation, based on legal limitations to the amounts that 
can be given in church bequests. Another notable after-result of 
her decease was the bodily "demonstration," leading the Directors 
of the Church in Boston to place for six months an armed 
guard with telephone connections to watch the place of her 
sepulture. 

In 1909-10 considerable advance was made in the Woman Suf- 
frage Movement in America and in the world. In England the 
"Suffragettes" adopted militant methods, and a number of women 
of prominent families were imprisoned on charges of social disor- 
der. In November, 1910, one thousand suffragettes in London 



740 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. [19IO. 

made an attack on Parliament, and 108 of these were arrested. 
Soon after this, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, an English suffragette, 
visited the United States, giving lectures in behalf of the cause. 
But although new interest in the subject was aroused, the women 
of America failed to adopt the policy of force that had been tried 
by their English sisters. 

In 1 910, however, the State of Washington joined the States of 
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, in granting full suffrage to 
women, and constitutional amendments for the same end were sub- 
mitted to the voters in several other States as well. In April, 1910, 
the National Association for Woman Suffrage held its Annual 
Convention in Washington, and, for the first time in its history it 
was addressed by a President of the United States. At the 
time of this convention a mammoth petition containing 500,000 
signatures was presented to Congress, and although the judi- 
ciary committee voted not to report a national suffrage bill, there 
was everywhere a growing recognition that the claim of women 
to voting rights was one of the leading public questions of the 
period. 

In the autumn of 191 1 , after a close contest, California was 
added to the States in which this fuller form of democracy was 
established. This suffrage victory at a single stroke practically 
doubled the number of enfranchised women in the United States, 
and gave a great impetus to the movement. 

Other popular movements of the period tended towards more 
democratic methods of governmental action. In 1910 the "initia- 
tive and referendum" was a part of the law in twelve States, four 
of these having adopted it during the year. The principle of "re- 
call" for an unpopular official was also operative in a number of 
American cities and in the State of Oregon. The commission sys- 
tem of municipal government, first adopted in Galveston in 1901, 
had a rapid extension, and in about a decade was in operation in 
more than a hundred American cities. 

On the third of January, 191 1, forty-eight postal savings banks 
were opened in different parts of the United States, mainly at manu- 
facturing centers, and began at once to receive deposits at 2 per 
cent annual interest. 

Under the Statehood Act of 1910, Arizona and New Mexico 
became presumptively States of the Union, thus increasing the num- 
ber of stars in the flag to 48, and bringing all the territory of the 
United States proper, except the District of Columbia, under State 



igio.] taft's administration. 741 

government. But before they could really assume the functions of 
statehood they must submit forms of constitution to Congress for 
approval. The form presented by Arizona embodied "the initiative 
and referendum," "the recall," woman suffrage, and all the most 
"progressive" ideas of popular government. It was criticized, how- 
ever, on the ground that the "recall" should not be applicable to the 
judiciary, but that these officials ought to be entirely independent 
of popular or political control. The proposed constitution for 
New Mexico was also opposed in the Senate and the final as- 
suming of statehood rights by those two territories a little longer 
delayed. • 

But by far the most important piece of national legislation to 
hold the attention of the country during the closing session of the 
Gist Congress was the proposed reciprocity treaty with Canada, 
providing for virtual free trade with Canada in certain classes of 
commodities, especially in the exchange of Canadian foodstuffs and 
American manufactures. The measure was strongly urged by the 
President, and was generally supported by the people both in Can- 
ada and the United States, but was vigorously opposed by certain 
business interests, especially among the agriculturists of the north- 
western States, and some of the manufacturers of New England. 
The question aroused much interest in England as well as in Amer- 
ica, being both advocated and opposed on the apparently groundless 
supposition that such reciprocity might tend toward the annexation 
of Canada to the United States (thus disrupting the British Em- 
pire) and also that it portended a policy of general free trade on the 
part of the United States. In February, 191 1, the House of Repre- 
sentatives passed the reciprocity bill, most of the Democrats and 
some of the Republicans voting in its favor, though a majority of 
the Republicans voted against it. The Senate, however, or some 
filibustering senators, succeeded in preventing it from coming to a 
vote before the time for the adjournment on March 4. And within 
an hour after the 61 st Congress came to an end, the President had 
issued a call for the 626. Congress to assemble in extra session on 
April 4, to take up anew this important question of reciprocity with 
Canada. Canada, however, by the results of an election in the fall 
of this year, rejected the treaty. 

Before January, 1910, the United States, under the general pro- 
visions of the Hague Conference, had concluded twenty-four lim- 
ited treaties of arbitration with as many foreign powers, representing 
all the leading nations except Russia and Germany. 



742 RECIPROCITY. [19IO. 

The signing of a new commercial treaty with Japan in February, 
191 1, was considered a very important act of the Taft adminis- 
tration, and gave much satisfaction to the peace advocates of Amer- 
ica, as it contains no provision for Japanese exclusion, although 
Japan will continue to refuse passports to laborers to come to the 
United States. 

The death of King Edward VII of England, May 6, 1910, com- 
ing at a time when there was a strong movement among nations 
to increase armaments, profoundly affected the Peace sentiments 
of the world, as it was universally recognized that during his brief 
reign the king had used his exalted position to promote peace among 
the nations. 

The Carnegie Peace Foundation of $10,000,000, given on De- 
cember 14, 1 910, was organized under a board of trustees at 
Washington, its President, Elihu Root, being made a permanent 
representative of the United States at the Hague Court. The fund 
is "to be perpetual, and when universal peace is attained, the in- 
come is to be devoted to the banishment of the next most degrading 
evil, or evils, the suppression of which will most advance the prog- 
ress, elevation, and happiness of man." 

Late in 1910 President Taft again paid a visit to the canal zone 
and spent five days in examining present conditions, expressing him- 
self much pleased with the progress that had been made. It was 
announced informally during his visit that the canal would be com- 
pleted before December 1, 191 3, or thirteen months earlier than the 
official date of the opening, which remained as January 1, 191 5. 
Between these two dates ships were to have the privilege of the 
canal, but at their own risk, the toll of this period to be established 
at the informal opening in 1913. In February, 191 1, a large land- 
slide occurred at Culebra Cut, retarding the progress of the work, 
but the casualty was. considered good evidence of the wisdom of the 
decision to make this a lock canal, as in the deeper cuttings of a sea- 
level canal landslides would be more frequent and more damaging. 

In the spring of 191 1, interest centered itself on the question 
whether fortifications should be erected at the two entrances of the 
canal. Many of the peace advocates deprecated this idea, but 
President Taft, former President Roosevelt and Carnegie, the great 
peace promoter, all gave their approval to this measure, and in 
February, 191 1. Copgress settled the question by including in its 
appropriations bill a sum of $3,000,000, to be used in beginning the 
work of canal fortification. 



191 1.] taft's administration. 743 

About the same time a lively public interest was shown in 
regard to the choice of a locality for a Panama Canal Exposition 
to celebrate the opening of the canal in 191 5. Several cities made 
overtures for this, New Orleans and San Francisco being the lead- 
ing candidates for this honor. The question was finally settled by 
Congress in favor of San Francisco. 

In September, 1910, Mexico celebrated the centenary of her 
national independence, and the whole month was given up to fes- 
tivity and rejoicing. The United States extended a most particular 
act of courtesy, a new step in foreign relations, by sending not 
only a special ambassador, but representatives from the two branches 
of Congress as well. On December 1, President Diaz, then over 
eighty years of age, took the oath of office for his eighth term. 

Shortly before this, however, an insurrection had broken out 
in Mexico, which was temporarily suppressed, but broke out again 
in various provinces, the province of Chihuahua being especially 
the seat of the disturbances. The insurrectionists found easy es- 
cape from arrest by retreating across the border, and arms and men 
were smuggled across the boundary by filibusters within the United 
States. After some months the European nations began to take 
cognizance of the disturbed conditions, and American intervention 
was advocated in some quarters as well as feared in others, lest it 
might result in the final annexation of Mexico to the United States. 

On the 7th of March, 191 1, orders were given for an extraor- 
dinary movement of 20,000 American troops to go into camp at 
San Antonio, Galveston, and near Los Angeles ; 2,000 marines were 
also ordered to Guantanamo; four armored cruisers, carrying 3,800 
officers and men, were directed to sail for the same port ; transports 
to Galveston were arranged for 36 companies of coast artillery, and 
most of the Pacific fleet started for San Pedro and San Diego. 

It was officially declared by the President and Secretary of War, 
and General Leonard Wood of the U. S. army, that the purpose 
of the movement (the most extensive of its kind ever executed in 
America in times of peace) was merely to practice maneuvers at 
the camping points, and to test the power of quick mobilization for 
the armies of the United States. But this explanation was not ac- 
cepted without question by the public. There were rumors of the 
failing health of President Diaz, and complaints to our government 
by Americans having business interests with large capitalization in 
Mexico which were endangered by the insurrectionary conditions, 
both before and after the retirement of President Diaz, 



744 MEXICAN r.EVOLUTION. 

On March 9, however, a semi-official statement was given out 
by President Taft, declaring that the United States was determined 
to preserve peace along its own borders, and that the American 
troops had been sent to form a solid military wall along the Rio 
Grande to stop filibustering, and to see that there was no further 
smuggling of arms and men across the boundary. 

Friendly messages were exchanged between President Taft and 
the Mexican government which was assured of American good will. 
It was believed, however, that the United States had the Monroe 
Doctrine in mind, and that it would prevent foreign intervention 
and protect foreign interests in Mexico, if Mexico herself should 
fail to do so. 

In the autumn of 191 1 President Taft made an extended tour 
through the country, speaking in many places on public questions 
and explaining the policies of the administration. 

At the end of October the largest naval demonstration ever un- 
dertaken by the United States was held at New York. More than 
one hundred and fifty vessels representing different departments as- 
sembled in the Hudson River and were reviewed by the President 
and Secretary-of-the-Navy Meyer. 

On November ioh Mr. Andrew Carnegie endowed the corpora- 
tion bearing his name with $25,000,000. The corporation had re- 
ceived its charter earlier in the year from the New York legisla- 
ture. The objects of the corporation were stated to be the "receiv- 
ing and maintaining a fund or funds and applying the income 
thereof to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and 
understanding among the people of the United States, by aiding 
technical schools, intitutions of higher learning, libraries, scientific 
research, hero funds, useful publications and by such other means 
as shall from time to time be found appropriate therefor." 

The second session of the Sixty-Second Congress, sitting from 
December 4, 19TI, to August 26, 1912, was marked by great legis- 
lative activity. The two houses were out of harmony with each 
other on many issues, and when thev did agree they were often at 
odds with President Taft. Two tariff bills w r ere passed, and both 
were vetoed. Three others were left pigeon-holed in conference. 
President Taft twice vetoed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial 
Appropriation Act. Congress finallv yielded to his objections and 
struck out the offending legislation. 

Among other acts of consequence passed at the second session 
were acts regulating traffic through the Panama Canal and pro- 



IQli-] taft's administration. 745 

viding for the government of the Canal Zone; regulating radio 
communication and radio equipment on steamers ; increasing pen- 
sions; abolishing pension agencies; carrying out the fur seal fisheries 
convention with Great Britain, Japan and Russia; establishing a 
legislature in Alaska; taxing the manufacture of white phosphorous 
matches ; creating an army reserve and consolidating the staff corps 
of the army; regulating salvage at sea; extending the federal eight- 
hour law, and amending the copyright law. 

The prescribed conditions concerning the admission to statehood 
of Arizona and New Mexico having been complied with, President 
Taft signed a proclamation announcing the admission of New Mex- 
ico into the Union on January 6, 19 12, and Arizona on February 14, 
19 1 2, thus making permanent the forty-eight stars on our flag. 

A change in the Constitution of the United States was made by 
the addition of the sixteenth amendment which was ratified by the 
necessary three- fourth of all the States, and became a part of the 
supreme law of the land, May 13, 191 2. It requires that hereafter 
United States Senators shall be elected directly by the people of 
the States, not by the Legislatures. Blair Lee, of Maryland, a Demo- 
crat, had the distinction of being the first senator to be elected in 
this fashion. 

Ceaseless and desperate war between capital and labor was exem- 
plified by the McNamara case. Two brothers named McNamara, 
were engaged with others in wholesale destruction of property, cul- 
minating in the loss of twenty-one lives by the demolition by dyna- 
mite of the Los Angeles "Times" building in October, 191 2. These 
outrages, extending over two years, were not perpetrated because of 
any personal wrong done the men, but because of the depraved theory 
that cold-blooded crime was legitimate in what they regarded as war 
against capital. Happily for the country, this theory is not to any 
considerable extent shared by labor men or labor unions. 

"Labor Unrest" had been a very conspicuous social feature in all 
countries of Western civilization, both in Europe and America. 
Generally speaking, the new system which has riveted public atten- 
tion in the unrest of the wage-earning classes, has been the rise of 
what is known as "Syndicalism," or a form of trade unionism, under 
the influence of which has become manifest a further stage of the 
evolution of ideas and of organized action in the assertion of the 
claims of labor as opposed to capital. 

President Lincoln is sometimes said to have held advanced ideas 
on the labor question; the actual words which he used, on which this 



746 THE TAFT-ROOSEVELT-WILSON CAMPAIGN. [l9I2. 

assertion is usually based, are to be found in his first annual message 
to Congress (as reprinted in the New York "Evening Post") : 
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the 
fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first 
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the 
higher consideration." 

The American Federation of Labor, an association of trades 
unions, started in 1881, reached, in 19 14, a membership of nearly 
two million. Textile strikes at Lawrence, Mass., early in 191 2, the 
cotton-mills operatives' strike at Lowell, Mass., and numerous other 
uprisings of labor; the rise of an organization called the "Industrial 
Workers of the World," in direct enmity to the trades unions, all 
led to increase of labor legislation. 

The controversy over the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, as to 
whether the law, in its present form, fits the labor unions any better 
than it fits the trusts, is exemplified in the statement that President 
Taft, in enforcing the Sherman Law, displeased the world of "big 
business" without satisfying the world of "little business." 

The year 191 2, red-lettered as it was with such momentous hap- 
penings as the establishment of a republic in the ages-old Empire 
of China; the discovery of the South Pole by Amundsen; the loss 
of the great ship Titanic with her fifteen hundred souls ; the death 
of the Emperor of Japan, and the outbreak of the Turkish war 
against the Balkan States, boasted also of the all-absorbing political 
contest in the United States, where a three-cornered national elec- 
tion gave birth to a new party. 

The primary campaign for the presidential nomination of 191 2 
is worthy of explanation. As delegates to the convention were to 
be chosen by direct vote in a considerable number of States, and as 
a presidential preference primary law had been established in twelve 
of them, the various aspirants of both Republican and Democratic 
parties showed a deference to public opinion quite unusual at such 
an early stage in the campaign. To an unprecedented extent they 
traveled about the country making speeches ; enormous quantities of 
literature were circulated, and money was spent with as much pro- 
fusion as in the regular election campaigns. Senator LaFollette had 
come forward in December, 191 1, as the Progressive candidate 
against President Taft ; but following his temporary physical col- 
lapse in the following February, the governors of seven States uni- 
ted successfully in urging Mr. Roosevelt to accept the Progressive 
leadership. It was felt that he alone could have good prospect of 



igi2.] roosevelt's defeat at Chicago. 747 

defeating the President for the nomination and of saving the party 
from disaster in the election. By the Democrats and by the con- 
servative Republicans, he was assailed for ignoring the tradition that 
the presidency should not be held by any man for more than two 
terms, and he was charged with ignoring a specific pledge (differ- 
ently interpreted by Mr. Roosevelt and his opponents) made by Mr. 
Roosevelt in 1904, upon being elected to the presidency, that he 
would under no circumstances accept a nomination in 1908. That 
these attacks carried little weight with the people was evident from 
the fact that Roosevelt secured the great majority of those delegates 
who were elected directly, and completely outdistanced Taft in the 
preference vote. In the Democratic party the prominent candidates 
were Oscar W. Underwood, leader of his party in the House of 
Representatives; Speaker Champ Clark, a man of great popularity 
rather than of intellectual distinction; Governor Judson Harmon, 
of Ohio, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, formerly 
president of Princeton University, whose political administration had 
been characterized by great vigor and independence, and whose repu- 
tation as a publicist stood very high. 

As the primary campaign proceeded, the public utterances of 
President Taft and Mr. Roosevelt were marked by increasing vigor, 
and the irreconcilable differences between these leaders spread to 
the rank and file of the party. When the Republican Convention met 
at Chicago, on June 18, 191 2, it was evident that everything de- 
pended upon the decision of more than two hundred and fifty con- 
tests. Mr. Roosevelt denounced as theft the action of the national 
committee in placing only 19 of his contestants upon the temporary 
roll. But an appeal to the convention was lost by more than fifty 
votes; and it was by about the same margin that the selection of 
Senator Elihu Root as temporary chairman was made. When the 
committee on credentials decided against the seating of his con- 
testing delegates, Mr. Roosevelt denounced their conduct as fraudu- 
lent and advised his followers to take no active part in the proceed- 
ings. Accordingly, most of them sat in silent protest while the plat- 
form was adopted and the nominations made. President Taft re- 
ceived 561 votes on the first ballot, or twenty-one more than the 
necessary majority. Vice-President Sherman, who was also renomi- 
nated, died a few days before the general election. 

This disruption of the Republican convention led to the birth of 
a new party, which took the name of National Progressive and ap- 
pealed for the support of Democrats and Progressive Republicans 



748 Wilson's nomination at ealtimore [1912. 

alike. Its convention was held in Chicago early in August. There 
Mr. Roosevelt made a declaration of his political views, which were 
received with enthusiasm and embodied in the platform. He was 
nominated for President, and Governor Hiram Johnson of Califor- 
nia for Vice-President. 

The national convention of the Democratic party met at Balti- 
more on June 25. It required forty-six ballots to select the presi- 
dential candidate. On the first, Clark had 440^, Wilson 324, Har- 
mon 148, Underwood ii//^, Marshall 31, Bryan 1. When, on the 
tenth ballot, the Tammany-controlled New York delegation trans- 
ferred its ninety votes from Harmon to Clark, Bryan declared that, 
as long as that situation lasted, he would withhold his vote from 
Clark. That declaration had much to do with the final success (on 
the 46th ballot) of Governor Woodrow Wilson. Governor Mar- 
shall of Indiana was nominated for the Vice-Presidency. Among 
the minor parties, neither the Independence League nor the Popu- 
lists put a national ticket in the field. The Prohibition party nomi- 
nated Eugene W. Chafin of Arizona its candidate in 1908, and Aaron 
S. Watkins of Ohio for Vice-President, the Socialist Labor party, 
Arthur E. Rheimer of Massachusetts, and August Gilhaus of New 
York. The Socialist party, Eugene V. Debs of Indiana. 

The platforms of the three leading parties held similar views 
upon a number of points, such as the reform of legal procedure, the 
establishment of a parcel post, and the maintenance of an adequate 
navy. But they had, of course, distinctive features. The Repub- 
lican platform, both by what it omitted and by what it contained, 
exhibited a conservative spirit. Silent upon the subject of social 
legislation and the methods of bringing government nearer to the 
people, it laid emphasis upon the necessity of preserving the integrity 
and authority of the courts as the protectors of individual and prop- 
erty rights. It reaffirmed belief in a protective tariff high enough 
to furnish a revenue and give protection to American industries, re- 
adjustments to be made in accordance with the findings of an expert 
commission. With respect to the anti-trust law supplementary legis- 
lation should "define as criminal offenses those specific acts which 
uniformly mark attempts to monopolize trade." In his speech of ac- 
ceptance, President Taft made it appear that there were two issues 
in the campaign : the preservation of representative government sup- 
ported by an independent judiciary, and the encouragement of busi- 
ness expansion through the free use of capital. 

The Democrats and Progressives agreed on a number of points: 



1 91 2.] RESULT OF THE ELECTION. 749 

the physical valuation of railroads, a regular Territorial government 
for Alaska, trial by jury for indirect contempt of court, limitation 
upon the use of injunctions, the spread of the direct primary and 
other instruments of popular rule, etc. But the Democratic pro- 
gram was much less comprehensive and, except for the tariff, much 
less radical. It insisted upon the old doctrine of State rights, a sin- 
gle term for the President, the abolition of protective duties (but by 
legislation which "will not injure or destroy legitimate business"), 
and supplementary legislation to give the Sherman Anti-Trust Law 
a more definite interpretation. 

The most characteristic feature of the Progressive platform was 
the attention which it gave to the subject of social welfare and in- 
dustrial justice. It advocated a more expeditious method of amend- 
ing the Federal Constitution, the recall of judicial decisions, the right 
of appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where the highest State 
court should hold laws invalid under the Federal Constitution, and 
the bringing under effectual national jurisdiction of those problems 
which have expanded beyond the reach of the States. The pro- 
posals with respect to the laboring class included minimum safety 
and health standards, prohibition of child labor and night work for 
women, minimum-wage standards for women, and much else. On 
the tariff, the Progressives differed from the Republicans only in 
demanding the immediate downward revision of excessive duties. 
They did, however, take a very different position with respect to 
the trusts, wishing to place their regulation under an administrative 
commission. They advocated woman suffrage. 

Although Mr. Roosevelt was received with enthusiasm during a 
speaking tour through the South, he managed to divert very few 
Democratic votes in the election. The concern expressed through 
the country when he was shot by a fanatic at Milwaukee on October 
24 evidenced his great personal popularity. He addressed a mass 
meeting for an hour and a half after being wounded. Democratic 
success in the elections, though foreshadowed by the disruption of 
the Republican party, was more complete than had been generally 
expected. Taft won only two States, Utah and Vermont, with eight 
electoral votes; Roosevelt won California, Michigan, Minnesota, 
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington, with eight electoral 
votes. All the other States went for Wilson, who received 435 elec- 
toral votes. Sweeping though the victory was, it seems to have been 
mainly due to the split in the Republican party. Wilson had a plu- 
rality of more than two million over Roosevelt, but he did not have 



'5° 



THE END OF TAFT'S TERM. 



[I9I3- 



ley M. Garrison, War; J. C. McReynolds, Attorney-General; A. S. 
a majority of the popular vote. The new Congress became Demo- 
cratic in both branches. In the House almost exactly two-thirds of 
the members were Democrats ; and the capture of State legislatures 
which had previously been Republican insured a small Democratic 
majority in the Senate. Mr. Wilson was formally inaugurated 
March 4, 1913. 

Early in the year 1913, while still President, Mr. Taft vetoed a 
bill which Congress had passed, forbidding immigrants to come to 
the United States unless they could read and write some language 
This was the last important act of the Taft administration. Many 




Photograph, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

THE PEACE PALACE AT THE HAGUE 

troublesome and dangerous questions, like the dispute with Great 
Britain over the Panama Canal tolls, and with Japan over the Cali- 
fornia land question, were passed on to the Wilson administration. 
President Taft, on the expiration of his term of office, retired 
to New Haven, where he became Professor of International Law 
in Yale University. 



CHAPTER XXII 
Under Woodrow Wilson 




OODROW WILSON, born in 
Staunton, Va., December 28, 1856, 
came from that sturdy Scotch- 
Irish race, from which many fa- 
mous men are descended. The 
staunch independence of both sides 
of his house, Woodrow and Wil- 
son, was combined in him. His fa- 
ther was a prominent Presbyterian 
clergyman, as was also his mother's 
father, Dr. Thomas Woodrow. 

There were twenty-seven Presi- 
dents before him, but no one of 
them brought to the White House so rounded an achievement of am- 
bition as Mr. Wilson. No one but Mr. Wilson had felt that the 
Presidency marked for him the perfecting of a personal ideal. From 
boyhood his mind was scholarly, and his dreams of a political career 
when he struck off from his first printing" press his cards : "Thomas 
Woodrow Wilson, United States Senator from Virginia," persisted 
through all these years. 

Mr. Wilson was an educator by virtue of inheritance, with a 
strong intellectual bent, and a certain elusive reticence, which made 
retirement congenial. He was educated at Princeton University, at- 
tended the University of Virginia Law School, and practiced law at 
Atlanta, Ga., for a short time. His professional career as a teacher 
was begun at Bryn Mawr College, and by 1902 he had reached the 
President's chair at Princeton University. He found this institution 
a "rich man's college" ; he made it democratic, and established the 
preceptorial system and many other reforms. He was assailed as a 
"leveler" and a "Socialist." He met much opposition from the trus- 
tees, and many complications arose, all turning on this democratic 
idea of equality that he advocated. 

In 1 910, when matters at Princeton were in this strained and 
unpleasant state, the Democratic party of New Jersey nominated 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

WOODROW WILSON 






I9 X 3-] TARIFF AND INCOME TAX 753 

Mr. Wilson for Governor. He was elected, and achieved a large 
number of reform measures. His record as governor brought him 
prominently forward as a candidate for the presidency only two 
years after his entrance into public life. 

The scholar in politics, while governor of New Jersey, sat with 
doors wide open, exemplifying his idea of democracy, and was sur- 
prisingly successful. Throughout his presidential campaign he 
preached to hundreds of audiences the strange doctrine that wisdom 
lies in a multitude of counselors. As President, he declared that the 
bankers should not dictate the regulation of the currency, nor should 
the manufacturers prescribe the tariff, but he would ask the opinion 
of men of all sorts. So far as he was humanly able, an entire peo- 
ple, through him, should have access to their government. 

Personally he is of a thoughtful cast of mind. There is about 
him that rigidity, part diffidence, part dignity, which, though it prove 
a barrier to intimacy and death to good fellowship, may yet be the 
salvation of a President. The fine air of distinction sits naturally 
upon him. Excepting Jefferson and Lincoln, w T e have not had an- 
other President who, by some right, human or divine, is, like Mr. 
Wilson, an artist. Virginia born, the winds of Monticello rocked 
his cradle, making him also a Democrat in the narrower sense. 

At the age of twenty-three, Wilson had published in the Interna- 
tional Review (August, 1879) the outline of his "Congressional Gov- 
ernment" which appeared in book form in 1885. His "The State" 
(1889) has become a standard work. He wrote besides "Division 
and Reunion, 1829- 1889" (1893), a short volume in a series on 
United States History; two volumes of essays, "An Old Master" 
and "Mere Literature" (1893) ; a Life of Washington (1896), and 
a popular History of the American People (1902). 

The coming into power of the new administration and a new 
party was the important event of 191 3. The Democracy had been 
out of power for sixteen years. A new generation of leaders had 
grown up. The change on March 4th meant new men, new ideals, 
and new plans. 

The new President put the foreign relations of the country into 
the hands of William J. Bryan, whom he made Secretary of State. 
It is. said of Mr. Bryan that, in spite of occasional absences on lec- 
ture engagements, he has spent more hours at his desk in the State 
Department than any other Secretary of State ever did. The other 
members of the Cabinet were : William G. McAdoo, Treasury ; Lind- 
ley M. Garrison, War; J. C. McReynolds, Attorney-General; A. S, 



754 TARIFF AND INCOME TAX [ x 9!3- 

Burleson, Postmaster-General ; Josephus Daniels, Navy ; F. K. Lane, 
Interior; D. F. Houston, Agriculture; W. C. Redfield, Commerce; 
W. B. Wilson, Labor. 

On his inauguration on March 4, President Wilson took com- 
mand as leader of his party, and called Congress to meet in extra 
session on April 7, 191 3. The administration started in with a pro- 
gram full of important reforms. While many activities were going 
on in the Executive Department, Congress was hard at work on two 
great changes in the law, the revision of the tariff and a new Cur- 
rency Bill. 

The new tariff made large reductions in the taxes on imported 
goods, and put many articles on the free list, especially foodstuff's. 
The change was expected gradually to reduce the cost of living. 

The same law included a graduated Income Tax, requiring every 
person in the United States, and every American citizen abroad, to 
pay a tax of at least 1 per cent on such of his or her yearly income as 
exceeds $3,000. If the income is above $20,000, the tax is 2 per 
cent on that part of an income which exceeds $20,000. 

The statutory exemption of $3,000 (or $4,000) is allowed for 
personal living or family expenses. These and other items of gross 
income, which are exempted by the law, are required to be fully set 
forth in a return of gross income, made under oath, and delivered 
to the Commissioner of • Internal Revenue. Each taxpayer is to 
be notified of the amount of tax by June 1 of each year, and is re- 
quired to make payment by June 30. 

There was, of course, a great difference of opinion in Congress 
and throughout the country, as to whether the Underwood Tariff 
Bill, as it is called, was wise or unwise. The Democrats affirmed 
that it would increase the country's prosperity and reduce the cost of 
living. The Republicans believed that it would be unfavorable to 
business, and would not materially reduce the cost of living. In 
the House, the principal speech for the bill was made by its author, 
Oscar W. Underwood, of Alabama. The chief speaker in opposition 
was Sereno E. Payne; of New York, author of the Payne tariff, 
which was displaced by the Underwood law. 

Mr. Underwood, in summing up his argument before the House, 
said that the new tariff would be the lowest the country has had in 
three-quarters of a century. The taxes which it put on imports av- 
erage but 26 per cent, while former tariffs have had average rates 
of 40, 50 or 60 per cent. Mr. Payne, as the spokesman for the Re- 
publican party, declared that the Democrats had overestimated the 




Photograph, American Press Association 

PANORAMIC VTEW OF THE PANAMA CANAL 



J $6 THE CURRENCY ACT l l 9^S- 

amount of revenue their new tariff would yield. He predicted that 
it would not produce enough income to pay the Government's ex- 
penses. President Wilson signed the bill on October 4, 191 3. 

The most important features of the tariff bill relate to sugars, 
wool, and cotton. Not all of this new Democratic tariff went into 
effect on its passage; the provision for free raw wool began De- 
cember 1, 191 3; the new rates on manufactured wool January 1, 
1 91 4; reduced rates on sugar and molasses March 1, 191 4, and 
changes in rates on denatured alcohol January 1, 191 4. Free entry 
of sugar and molasses are permitted on May 1, 191 6. 

Were protectionists mistaken? Opponents of the new tariff said 
that it would "flood the country" with goods from foreign countries. 
On the contrary, the imports in October and November, 191 3, were 
$50,000,000 less than in the same months the previous year. Exports 
also fell off, but by only $15,000,000. Thus we had a better bal- 
ance of trade under a low tariff than under a high one. No real test 
of the new law would be possible, however, until at least a year had 
elapsed after its passage. 

After Congress had passed the Tariff Bill, President Wilson in- 
sisted, although the members of Congress were weary and wished to 
adjourn, that a bill to reform the currency should be the immediate 
successor of the tariff. He thought that the "two should go together, 
for with a low tariff there would be great peril so long as the bank- 
ing and currency system remained unreformed. 

Congress therefore added three months to its labors, with the 
result that the Federal Reserve Act, or the Glass-Owen Bill, so called 
because Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, had charge of it in the Senate, 
and Representative Glass, of Virginia, in the House, was formulated. 

Many senators, representatives and business men stated that this 
was the most important law that had been passed by Congress since 
the Civil War. Both Houses divided nearly on party lines; but the 
Republicans were not solid in their opposition, while every Demo- 
cratic senator voted for the bill. The new law changed practically 
the whole banking system of the country. 

The new system is governed by a Federal Reserve Board, con- 
sisting of the Secretary of the Treasury and six others, appointed 
by the President. This Board was given very great powers, and is 
composed of men of high ability. The salary was made $12,000 
for each member. Not less than eight, nor more than twelve, "re- 
gional banks" are located in different parts of the country. These 
are banks for banks; that is, the banks deposit money in the "re- 



I9 J 3-] REPEAL OF CANAL TOLLS PROVISION 757 

gional banks" just as individuals deposit in ordinary banks. 

The national banks, about 7,500 in number, which existed when 
the law was passed, were compelled to subscribe to the stock of and 
to make deposits in the regional banks, under the penalty of losing 
their Federal charters. The 18,000 State banks then existing were 
not required to come in, but they were invited to do so. 

The most important provision of the plan, the part that is ex- 
pected to prevent panics, is the "re-discount" provision. When 
money becomes "tight," or scarce, in any city, .the banks of that city 
may take the "business paper" that they hold — the notes of business 
men who have borrowed money from the bank — and on turning it 
over to the regional bank will receive 50 per cent of its face value 
in new paper money. 

These new bank notes are guaranteed not only by the "business 
paper" and the local bank, but also by the United States. They are 
to be protected by a gold reserve of 40 per cent. Thus a bank which 
has good assets will always be able to obtain cash, no matter how 
"tight" the money market may be. In case there should be a severe 
shortage of cash in one section of the country, the Federal Reserve 
Board can cause money and credit bills to be transferred from the 
regional banks to the regional bank where the shortage is. 

The signing of the Currency Bill by President Wilson occurred 
in the presence of a crowd that thronged the executive offices at the 
White House. Naturally the President was in a happy mood, for 
he had worked hard for seven months to get the bill through Con- 
gress, and he believed that the country was getting the best Christmas 
present it had had in a long time. He signed the bill with four gold 
pens which he gave respectively to Mr. Glass, Senator Owen, Secre- 
tary McAdoo, and Senator Chilton, of West Virginia, as souvenirs. 

After he had signed, the President made a little speech in which 
he spoke of the new law as "a constitution of peace." He referred 
to this and the tariff law as "the first of a series of constructive 
measures." Several months were consumed by the authorities in 
Washington in selecting the cities, or "centers," in which reserve 
banks were to be located and in making appointments of members 
of the Federal Reserve Board. The centers finally selected were 
New York, Boston, Richmond, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Min- 
inneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, and St. 
Louis. In the early summer of 1914 the final selections of mem- 
bers of the Board had been made, and it was expected that the banks 
would be in active operation by August 1st. 



?~S REPEAL OF CANAL TOLLS PROVISION [1913. 

On August 24, 1912, President Taft had signed the Panama 
Canal Act, which was at once made the subject of a protest from 
Great Britain, leading later to a controversy of considerable inter- 
national interest. 

The Act provided in detail for the general operation of the Canal 
and the regulation of commerce passing through it, but the point in 
question was concerned with the tolls. The President was empow- 
ered, within his discretion, to impose tolls not exceeding $1.25 per 
registered ton on all vessels using the Canal, excepting vessels en- 
gaged in the American coastwise trade (restricted by law already to 
American vessels) on which no tolls at all were to be levied. The 
British contention, more or less informally conveyed to the American 
Government while the Act was still under discussion by way of a 
warning that a formal protest would follow, was that this was a 
violation of Article III of the Hay-Paunce forte Treaty of 1901, 
which said that "the Canal shall be free and open to all vessels . . . 
so that there shall be no discrimination against any nation in respect 
of the conditions and charges of traffic." It was also intimated on 
behalf of Great Britain that if the Act was passed, in spite of the 
objection raised, she would appeal for arbitration as to its legality 
to the Hague Tribunal under the Treaty of 191 1. The result of this 
was a special message to Congress by President Taft on August 19th, 
before the bill was finally passed, in which he argued that the exemp- 
tion of American "coastwise vessels" from tolls was not a violation 
of the treaty. It may be noted that on December 21, 191 1, he had 
sent an earlier message, dealing with the importance of leaving it to 
the President, within certain limits, to fix the tolls, and had said, 
without referring to the Hay-Paunceforte Treaty, that he was "con- 
fident that the United States has the power to relieve from the pay- 
ment of tolls any part of our shipping that Congress deems wise." 
As, however, distinguished lawyers of the House and Senate and also 
Great Britain differed with this construction, he recommended that 
Congress pass a resolution, or add a clause to the bill, distinctly say- 
ing that nothing in the bill should be ^deemed to repeal any pro- 
vision of the Hay-Paunceforte Treaty or to affect the judicial con- 
struction thereof," and giving a right of action to any foreigner who 
considered the provisions of the Treaty to be violated to his detri- 
ment. This suggestion, however, was not complied with, and so 
far as Great Britain was concerned was regarded as obviously un- 
satisfactory. A domestic court of law was not the place for arguing 
the violation of a treatv right. According to President Taft's con- 



i9 : 4-] Mexico 759 

tention and the purport of the new Panama Canal Act, the Hay- 
Paunceforte Treaty was not violated, and the proper place for hav- 
ing that question decided, according to the Arbitration Treaty of 
191 1, was the Hague Tribunal. 

In February, 191 4, the Canal Toll question was again an issue. 
President Wilson asked Congress to repeal the provision of the law 
exempting American coastwise vessels from tolls. He went straight 
to the heart of the tolls exemption matter when he said, as to the 
interpretation of the Hay-Paunceforte Treaty: "It is at least de- 
batable ; and if the promises we make in such matters are debatable, 
I, for one, do not care to debate them. I think the country would 
prefer to let no question arise as to its whole-hearted purpose to 
redeem its promises in the light of any reasonable construction of 
them rather than debate a point of honor." 

In his message to Congress on the second day of the second year 
of his presidency, he said : 

"Whatever may be our own differences of opinion concerning this 
much-debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United 
States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but 
one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I 
am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty ; its language 
we accepted, if we did not originate it; and we are too big, too pow- 
erful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with too strained or 
refined a reading of words of our own promises just because we have 
power enough to give us leave to read them as we please." 

Then he made this appeal: "I ask this of you in support of the 
foreign policy of the administration. I shall not know how to deal 
with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence 
if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure." 

Within a few months the House of Representatives by a large 
majority passed a bill repealing the tolls provision. In the Senate 
the bill with an unimportant amendment was passed early in June, 
and the House, without conference with the Senate, passed the bill 
a few days later as amended in the Senate and the President 
signed it. 

On October 10, 191 3, almost the last obstruction in the digging 
of the Panama Canal was removed when President Wilson pressed 
a button at the White House in Washington and exploded charges of 
dynamite to blow up the Gamboa Dike. It was the largest blast 
used in the work on the Canal; more than 1,000 holes had been 
drilled, and each hole contained 80 to 100 pounds of dynamite. The 



760 MEXICO [191 4. 

world's greatest work of engineering stands not only as a modern 
"Wonder of the World," but as a monument to American genius 
and enterprise. 

On October 11, water was let into Culebra Cut, marking the 
completion of the work done by the French in 1882. Slides and 
much-dreaded but comparatively harmless earthquakes had retarded 
work on the Canal at this point, but when the dam at Gamboa Dike 
was removed, the water of Gatun Lake filled the entire Canal. 

The completion of the Panama Canal brought to the commercial 
world the beginning of a period of closer and more certain communi- 
cation, and gives to the United States promise of a more intimate 
and sympathetic understanding with South American countries, as 
well as having an important bearing on the naval situation in this 
country. 

The United States harbor of Guantanamo, with Jamaica in 
friendly hands, controls the Atlantic entrance to the Canal, while, 
if the efforts to obtain the Galapagos Islands are successful, the Pa- 
cific entrance will be equally secure. 

Plans for the celebration of the completion of the Canal at the 
Exposition in San Francisco in 191 5 were greatly furthered during 
191 3 by the promised official participation of twenty-eight foreign 
countries and thirty-five States of the Union. It was announced 
that a grand total of more than $80,000,000 would be available for 
the Exposition. President Wilson in March, 191 5, was to lead a 
great international fleet of warships from Hampton Roads to Colon 
for the official opening of the canal. He was to pass through the 
canal on the Oregon, and then go to San Francisco, still leading 
this great fleet, to open the Exposition. 

The results achieved in sanitation during the building of the 
Canal were remarkable. The work began with a rigid quarantine, 
followed by improved muncipal engineering, anti-yellow fever 2nd 
anti-malaria measures. Sanitation is now kept at a high pitch by 
a system of government supervision of health down to the verv 
details of clean and bright housing, advice with regard to the kinds 
of food to eat, and free advice and attendance by a corps of com- 
petent and enthusiastic physicians. 

Colonel William C. Gorgas, Surgeon-General of the United 
States Army, through his priceless services on the Isthmus, made one 
of the worst disease spots in the world perfectly safe. Colonel 
George W. Goethals was appointed first Civil Governor of the Canal 
Zone, and occupied the position on April 1, 1914. 



I9I4-] 



THE NEUTRAL ZONE PLAN. 



76l 



A noteworthy incident in connection with the equipment at the 
Canal Zone was the placing, in January, 1914, of an enormous six- 
teen-inch gun, the most powerful rifle in the world, and capable of 
doing execution at a distance of more than twenty miles, at the forts 
near the Pacific end of the Canal. 

In March, 191 2, revolutionary conditions were still existing in 
Mexico. The United States Government, through a proclamation by 

President Taft, formally 
forbade the exportation of 
arms to Mexico under pen- 
alty of the law, which pro- 
vides a $10,000 fine, or im- 
prisonment for two years. 
But this decree came too 
late to have much effect. In 
May, several prominent 
Americans were forcibly 
deported from Mexico for 
supplying the rebels with 
arms. The situation be- 
came more and more acute, 
until President Taft was 
said to have threatened to 
resort to intervention un- 
less conditions were im- 
proved. President Ma- 
dero, of Mexico, notified 
the United States that "if a 
single foreign trooper 
crossed the border there 
would be war between the 
two countries." President 
Taft, however, denied any 
real intention of active intervention. 

Great Britain, Germany, and France meanwhile addressed in- 
quiries to the United States, asking what steps were contemplated 
for protecting foreign interests in Mexico; and in June, 1912, Mr. 
Philander C. Knox, then the United States Secretary of State, sub- 
mitted a plan to create a neutral zone for 15 miles on each side of the 
Rio Grande River, where any troops of either the Mexican or United 




Copyright by G. V. Buck. 

From Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

COL. GEORGE WASHINGTON GOETHALS 



j62 HUERTA MADE PRESIDENT OF MEXICO. [ I 9 I 4- 

States armies, during times of revolution and riot, might enter to 
protect the lives and property of their countrymen. 

Four of our largest States in area — Texas, New Mexico, Ari- 
zona, and California — border on Mexico, with a frontier about two 
thousand miles in length. The Rio Grande River, which forms a 
great part of the boundary, is fordable most of the time, and af- 
fords peculiar advantages for the concealment of lawless incursions, 
and there had been some pillaging expeditions from our side into 
Mexico. For the military protection of that border, our Government 
incurred considerable expense. There are five or more railroads 
running from the United States into Mexico, and in recent years 
several thousand Americans had gone there to engage in mining, 
business, agriculture, or professional callings, a number of whom, 
it is pitiful to believe, lost both property and life from the lawless- 
ness accompanying the frequent political revolutions. Not only on 
their account, but for the sake of the Mexicans themselves, the 
people of the United States were anxious for a just administration 
of government in that country. 

General Porfirio Diaz, for thirty years continuously and ud to 
191 1, had exercised dictatorial power in Mexico, under the title of 
President. Quiet prevailed through fear. It was believed that he 
unduly enriched himself, but it was admitted that under his gov- 
ernment the public finances were greatly improved, credit established, 
useful public works accomplished, and popular education and indus- 
trial welfare advanced. 

In 191 1, the Mexican people, became tired of one-man power, 
and, rebelling against the Diaz government, elected Francisco I. 
Madero, a wealthy planter, as President. He desired to have the 
Constitution obeyed and freedom secured to the people, and dis- 
charged his duties faithfully, expecting that his acts would receive 
the approval of the country; but he lacked, apparently, the tact and 
forcefulness which the circumstances required, and another revolu- 
tion was on foot before many months had passed. 

This second revolution resulted in the placing of General Vic- 
toriano Huerta in the President's chair, in February, 191 3. The 
deposed President, and the deposed Vice-President, Jose Pino 
Suarez, were slain on February 22d, on their way to the peniten- 
tiary. Although many of the Powers promptly recognized Huerta 
as head of a de-facto government, President Wilson steadily refused 
to do so. On August 4, 1913, the resignation of Henry Lane Wil- 
son, American Ambassador to Mexico, was accepted, thus leaving 



I9I4-] 



REBELLION AGAINST HUERTA. 



763 



the United States free to follow a policy, with which his acts at the 
Mexican capital, whence he had been recalled in July for conference, 
were not consistent. John Lind, the personal representative of Pres- 
ident Wilson, was then sent into Mexico to observe and report on 
the condition of affairs, and to propose informally a plan by which 
the United States would undertake friendly mediation. 

Lind had a conference with Frederico Gamboa, the Mexican For- 

attempting to carry 
out his instructions. 
He was unsuccess- 
ful, and his of- 
fers were character- 
ized by Gamboa and 
the Mexican press in 
general as humiliat- 
ing. On October 26 
the form of a Presi- 
dential Election was 
gone through with, 
but the demoraliza- 
tion of the country 
was so complete that 
not enough votes 
were cast to make 
the election valid, 
and Huerta remain- 
ed in power. 

Meanwhile, parts 
of Mexico were in a 
state of active revo- 

Copyright, Underwood & Underwood. lutlOn against 

RAISING THE FLAG OVER VERA CRUZ. XlUerid. S UOVei Wr 

ment. General Ve- 
nustiano Carranza, the Constitutional Governor of the State of Coa- 
huila, was generally regarded as the leader of the anti-Huerta forces. 
His successes against Federal forces in the northern States indi- 
cated that he might prove strong enough to overthrow Huerta, and 
informal negotiations, which proved futile, were held with him by 
Dr. William Bayard Hale, acting as an unofficial representative of. 
President Wilson. 

Steadily refusing either to recognize Huerta or to intervene, as 




;6 4 



THE OCCUPATION OF VERA CRUZ 



[IQI4. 



was demanded from many quarters, the United States Government 
continued to play a "watching and waiting" game so far as Mexico 
was concerned. At the same time, large army detachments were 
held in readiness for use in Texas, and American battleships were 
kept in Mexican waters. Every American citizen in Mexico who 
desired to leave the country, as all were advised to do, was given 
assistance by the United States Government in the transportation of 
himself and family. President Wilson's message to Congress on 

December 2 reiter- 
ated his determina- 
tion that the "usurp- 
er" Huerta must go, 
and his adherence to 
a policy of "watch- 
ful waiting." 

President Wilson 
took the position that 
under no circum- 
stances would this 
Government acquire 
territory by force of 
arms. He went fur- 
ther than his prede- 
cessors, however, in 
resisting the tenden- 
cies toward possible 
acquisition. He set 
about weakening 
their force. That 
w r as the basis of his 
opposition to the 
kind of concession 
that might give to a foreign government a special reason for inter- 
fering in Central America. He desired to insure a "tolerable" con- 
dition in Mexico by recognizing only a government legally elected, 
one which, therefore, had some chance for popular support. He rea- 
soned that if the United States could make it plain that men who 
came into power by murder can get no benefit from their acts, such 
methods would cease and a state of affairs nearer "tolerable" will 
prevail. Mexico had produced but one able dictator in a hundred 




Copyright, Underwood & Underwood. 

GENERAL FREDERICK FUNSTON AT HIS DESK AT HIS HEADQUARTERS 
IN VERA CRUZ. 



I9I4-] THE PARCEL POST. 767 

years, and a class of citizens grew up in northern Mexico which 
made even his methods impossible. 

Thus matters drifted along through the winter and early spring 
of 1914, the Constitutionalists making steady progress southward 
from their strongholds. President Wilson, however, maintained his 
firm stand against intervention, his policy being "watchful waiting." 
A crisis was precipitated early in April, when a paymaster, landing 
at Tampico from the United States steamship Dolphin, in order to 
get certain supplies for his ship, was arrested by a squad of men 
from the army of General Huerta. An hour and a half later the 
paymaster was released with an expression of regret from General 
Huerta, but Rear-Admiral Mayo, commanding the United States 
naval force at Tampico, not satisfied with Huerta's atonement for 
the arrest, demanded that the flag of the United States be saluted 
with special ceremony. 

This demand was replied to, in form and under conditions, that 
were not satisfactory at Washington, and then an ultimatum was 
promulgated that, unless an unconditional salute was given before a 
certain date, an armed force would be employed by the United States. 
Huerta, failing to yield, a fleet of warships, comprising almost the 
entire Atlantic fleet, was then dispatched to Mexican waters and a 
military force to the frontier. Rear-Admiral Fletcher, late in April, 
landed sailors and marines at Vera Cruz and seized the custom 
house, meeting with practically no armed opposition. Incidentally, 
however, and as results of shots from housetops and street corners 
on that day and afterward, seventeen of his men were killed, or even- 
tually died in this service. 

It was now hoped that Huerta might yield, or that he would 
take to flight. After a few weeks of fruitless waiting it was an- 
nounced that President Wilson had called in as mediators in the 
Mexican situation the envoys then in Washington representing three 
South American republics — Brazil, Argentina and Chile. This act 
was generally commended. Racially there existed real natural sym- 
pathy between the mediators and the afflicted country whose affairs 
they were to adjust. To the United States this action had further, 
and probably deeper, significance in that it promised so much in 
bringing about better relations between us and our sister republics 
of the south. On May 18th the mediators began their sessions at 
Niagara Falls, with every hope, and apparently with every prospect, 
that before the summer far advanced some satisfactory solution of a 



/68 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. [1914. 

tangled situation would have been reached and Mexico once more 
placed in the enjoyment of the blessings of peace. Another outcome 
of the work of the mediators was the making of the long-discussed 
Pan-Americanism a reality rather than a dream. 

Increased efficiency in the Federal Government was shown by 
the fact that the chronic deficit in the Postoffice Department had dis- 
appeared, and that Congress was willing to entrust new functions to 
the department. In 1910, a system of postal savings banks was es- 
tablished, such postoffices as were designated by a board of trustees 
receiving deposits on which the United States pays 2 per cent on 
amounts of from $1 to $500, and offering in exchange for the de- 
posit receipts in government bonds bearing 2 l / 2 per cent interest. 
The trustees are empowered to place the moneys in State and na- 
tional banks, under certain proscribed guarantees. Put gradually 
into operation, the system worked splendidly. It began operations 
January 3, 191 1, and at the beginning of November, 1912, 12,773 
postoffices out of a total of 58,133 in the country, representing every 
State in the Union, were receiving deposits ; the depositors numbered 
290,000, and the total deposits were $28,000,000. 

In May, 191 2, a law providing for a parcel post for rural and 
city delivery routes was passed and became effective January 1, 191 3. 
The maximum weight was first set at eleven pounds ; and the charges, 
beginning with a minimum of five cents for the first and one cent 
for each additional pound,, increased with the distance. A large dis- 
cretion in modifying the original regulations was given to the Post- 
master-General, under the control of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission. Agitation for the parcel post had been largely due to what 
were believed to be excessive charges by the express companies. It 
proved an immediate success, and subsequent rulings of the Post- 
master-General not only reduced the rates charged for some of the 
distances covered, but increased the limit of weight to twenty and 
then to fifty pounds, with an indication that the scope of the system 
will continue to be enlarged. 

Early in 19 14, following the orders of the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, the express companies reduced many of their charges 
so that small packages were carried at graduated rates according to 
the distances covered. The companies, however, felt the competition 
of the parcel post severely, so much so, in fact, that the United 
States Express Company decided to wind up its business affairs and 
distribute its assets among its shareholders. The contracts of this 
company were turned over to other companies, These other com- 



I9I4-] THE TITANIC DISASTER. 769 

panies declared their intention to continue in business. The quoted 
value of their stock fell sharply, however, and they were compelled 
to reduces the rates of dividends paid from 8 and 10 per cent, to 6. 

In view of the attitude taken by the Progressive party in the 
campaign of 191 2, woman suffrage was regarded as one of their 
important principles. Prior to 19 12 women enjoyed a limited suf- 
frage, chiefly in matters pertaining to the schools, in twenty-three 
States, and full suffrage in California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, 
Washington, and Wyoming. In that year proposed constitutional 
amendments conferring the privilege were defeated in Ohio, Mich- 
igan, and Wisconsin, but ratified in Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon. 
These nine suffrage States cover about a quarter of the entire Union 
and contain nearly three million women of voting age. In 191 3 Illi- 
nois granted the suffrage to women for all non-constitutional offi- 
cers, including Presidential electors. The territory of Alaska also 
granted suffrage to women in the same year. 

In June, 191 3, an International Suffrage Congress was held in 
Budapest, Hungary, at which twenty-seven nations were repre- 
sented. This congress was the most largely attended international 
congress of any kind ever held in Hungary. There were 
2,800 enrolled members present. The governors of Oregon, Wash- 
ington, and California sent representatives to report the good re- 
sults which followed the enfranchisement of women in their States. 

At the International Peace Congress, held at The Hague, a reso- 
lution was unanimously passed demanding that the Council of Berne 
place on the regular order of business at the next Peace Congress the 
question of calling upon the various nations to consider the enfran- 
chisement of women, with the view of hastening universal peace. 

In New York, the suffragists were greatly encouraged by the 
fact that many of the executive officers of the municipality elected 
in November, 191 3, were strong suffragists. John Purroy Mitchel, 
the mayor of New York City, showed his belief that women should 
perform civic duties, when fitted for them, by the appointment as 
Commissioner of Correction of Dr. Katharine B. Davis, who, within 
the first few weeks after her appointment, introduced reforms that 
corrected long-standing abuses and were generally commended by 
the public. 

In connection with the theory of education, the chief item was 
the interest aroused by Dr. Marie Montessori's work in Italy, and 
her visit to the United States in 191 3. It was widely felt that, 
since Froebel, no one had suggested such valuable improvements 



JJO FLOODS IN THE OHIO VALLF.Y. [l9I4- 

in educational methods, and that the "Montessori System" gave an 
entirely new direction to the whole "Kindergarten" idea. 

Alfred Bernhard Nobel, a noted Swedish scientist, and the in- 
ventor of dynamite, left at his death, in 1896, an estate worth over 
$9,000,000. He directed in his will that this money should constitute 
a fund the interest of which should be divided into five equal amounts 
and awarded annually as prizes, "one to the person who, in the do- 
main of physics, has made the most important discovery or inven- 
tion; one to the person who has made the most important chemical 
discovery or invention; one to the person who has made the most 
important discovery in the domain of medicine or physiology ; one to 
the person who in literature has provided the most excellent work 
of an idealistic tendency, and one to the person who has worked 
most or best for the fraternization of nations, and the abolition or 
reduction of standing armies, and the propagation of peace con- 
gresses." 

In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt received the prize for 
Peace; in 1907, Professor A. A. Michaelson, of the University of 
Chicago, for Physics; in 1912, Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the Rockefeller 
Institute of New York, for Medicine, and Elihu Root for Peace. 

No single event in 19 12 could compare, in the intensity of its 
universal appeal to human emotion, with the awful disaster of the 
Titanic. At 2:20 A. M., on April 15th, that great White Star liner, 
the largest steamship then afloat, while on her maiden voyage, from 
Liverpool to New York, went to the bottom of the Atlantic in about 
two and three-quarter hours after striking, at full speed, an ice- 
berg, with a loss of 1,513 souls out of 2,224 on board. It had 
been supposed that this vessel was unsinkable, and the tragedy caused 
numerous official investigations as to better methods of ship con- 
struction, and provision of adequate life-saving equipment. A little 
more than two years afterwards, in May, 1914, another regular At- 
lantic liner, the Princess of Ireland, during a dense fog at the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence River, was struck by a Norwegian collier and 
sank in ninety feet of water, carrying down to their death more than 
1,000 men, women and children. 

What must undoubtedly go down to history as the greatest de- 
struction wrought by nature during the year 191 3, was the life and 
property loss in the Ohio River valley caused by unprecedented floods 
during the latter part of March. It is conservatively estimated by 
the Red Cross Association that through this flood 600 lives were lost. 



1 91 3.] FLOODS IN THE OHIO VALLEY. 771 

The loss of property was put at between $250,000,000 and $300,- 
000,000. 

Fire, starvation, and freezing weather were visited simulta- 
neously with the flood upon the people of Dayton, Ohio, who were 
the greatest sufferers. As the water swept down the Ohio River, 
hundreds of thousands of homeless people sought refuge on the 
higher lands. Calls for financial aid in behalf of the whole dev- 
astated area were promptly answered from every quarter; New 
York City, in less than twenty-four hours, responded with contri- 
butions of nearly $200,000 in cash, and trainloads of supplies were 
dispatched to the flooded section. President Wilson sent Secretary 
of War Garrison, accompanied by Major-General Leonard Wood 
and a staff, to the scene, and the militia in all the States affected were 
summoned to assist in restoring order and relieving suffering. For 
w r eeks the Federal Government supplied rations for thousands of the 
needy. As the flood waters of the Ohio swept on down toward the 
Mississippi River, it brought much property destruction to Louis- 
ville and other cities nearer its mouth. 

Floods in Texas in the fall also caused a great property loss, but 
on account of early warnings few lives were lost. 

During the fortnight prior to the Ohio floods, the Middle West, 
particularly Nebraska, was swept by cyclonic windstorms, with wide- 
spread casualties and property losses. These began on March 14, 
when towns and cities of five States in the South and in the Mississ- 
ippi River region were devastated. Throughout the week storms re- 
curred, and on March 21, the worst telephone and telegraph blockade 
ever contended with in this country separated the East from the 
West. While Indiana and Iowa suffered greatly, Nebraska bore the 
brunt of the damage, and in its chief city, Omaha, a part of the resi- 
dential section was razed to the ground. 

In the height of summer, almost the same section, the corn belt 
of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, was visited by a hot wave 
which lasted through the first half of August, withering crops and 
culminating in a continued drought which resulted in severe suf- 
fering throughout the corn belt. 

The Great Lakes were the scene of the most violent of the au- 
tumn storms. A blizzard which enveloped the whole region from 
November 9 to November 1 1 , wrecked nearly a dozen vessels, chiefly 
grain and ore boats, and severely damaged a score more. The loss 
in lives of sailors was put above one hundred. 

What was perhaps the greatest single loss by shipwreck during 



77? 



THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



LI9II. 



the year occurred on March 1, when the small British steamship 
Calvados foundered in a storm in the Sea of Marmora, and 200 
persons were drowned. But that calamity was scarcely known to the 
millions who followed with breathless interest the story of the burn- 
ing in mid-ocean of the Volturno, of the Uranium Line, with a loss 
of 136 persons, and the gallant work of rescue performed by the in- 
ternational fleet, which rushed to its assistance in response to wire- 
less calls for aid. 




THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 

One of the world's greatest works of engineering after the Pa- 
nama Canal, the Ashokan aqueduct tunnel, built to supply New York 
City with pure water from the Catskill Mountain region, begun in 
1904 and having a capacity of 500,000,000 gallons of water every 
day, was near completion in 191 4. Accompany it are reservoirs 
large enough to hold sufficient water to supply the city for fifty days. 

The New York Public Library, one of the most costly and largest 
libraries in the world, was established by a consolidation of the Astor, 
Lenox and Tilden libraries on May 23, 1895. The Astor Library, 
which had been founded in 1840 by John Jacob Astor, consisted of 
267,000 rare historical books, pamphlets and manuscripts. To this 
foundation the Lenox Library, founded by James Lenox in 1870, 
brought as many more, consisting of a precious Biblical collection 
and books on American history ; and the Tilden Library, founded by 
Samuel J. Tilden in 1884, a political library of 16,000 volumes and 
a foundation fund of $2,000,000. 



1912-1913-] 



TWO GREAT TERMlxNTALS. 



773 



The corner store of the new building, at Fifth Avenue and Forty- 
second Street, was laid on November 10, 1902; at the end of No- 
vember, 1906, the entire building was under roof; and on May 23, 
191 1, it was formally opened. 

The building, in the Renaissance style of architecture, is in the 
form of a rectangle, 390 feet long and 270 feet deep. The area cov- 
ered is about 115,000 square feet, and the contents 10,380,000 cubic 
feet. The material used was largely white Vermont marble, bonded 
in brick walls. In the reading rooms are seats for 1,760 persons. 
The main stack room has 334,530 feet of shelving, with a capacity 




8=i ft£ 

Courtesy of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. 

THE GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK CITY 

for about 2,500,000 volumes. In the special reading rooms are about 
70,000 feet of shelving, with capacity for 500,000 volumes. The 
collection of books in 1913 numbered over 1,126,000 volumes and 
pamphlets. The building was erected by the City of New York at 
an approximate cost of $9,000,000 ; the ground, which was owned by 
the city, was valued at $20,000,000 ; the estimated value of the library 
and its contents is $50,000,000. This building serves as the center 
of the whole library system of the city, and contains the administra- 
tive offices, the main reference collections, a circulation department, 
the traveling library office, and a library for the blind. 

Two other splendid buildings, devoted to public uses, were com- 
pleted in New York in the period here under review — new terminals 
for the Pennyslvania and New York Central Railroads. The 
Pennsylvania Terminal, an enterprise costing tens of millions of dol- 



774 GOVERNMENT WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. [l9I2. 

lars, included tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers and across! 
Manhattan Island, with a grand edifice for a station on Seventhl 
Avenue and Thirty-second and Thirty-third Streets, By means ofl 
this improvement, passengers avoid the use of a ferry in going from 
New York south and west on the Pennsylvania road and in going to I 
Long Island. Moreover, the Pennsylvania has acquired on Long! 
Island ample grounds for the storage and switching of cars, making j 
up of trains, etc. 

Following the opening of this terminal came, afterwards, on Jan- 
uary 31, 1 913, the opening of the new Grand Central Terminal. 
Some of the features that make this terminal unusual are, the elimi- 
nation of stairways, accomplished by the use of ramps, or inclined 
ways ; the complete separation of the through from the local traffic by 
having the waiting-rooms, ticket offices and tracks of the former at 
on the level beneath, and the advantage of connection by under- 
ground passages with the present subway, and arrangements for 
similar connections with other subways and tunnels not yet opened. 

Applied science has made the world a new one to live in. A few 
years ago there would have been but little to record in regard to 
radiotelegraphy, or the "wireless," except in the matter of experi- 
mental work. 

Radiotelegraphy, in its present form, is the work of many hands 
of different nationalities. Several different systems are at present 
available. Like the Australian Commonwealth, the United States 
Government decided not to adopt any one complete system, but to 
buy whatever was needed in the open market and establish its own 
system of radiotelegraphy. At the end of 191 2 the projected radio- 
telegraphic stations of the United States Government — some of 
which had actually been installed — were at Arlington, near Wash- 
ington, Panama, San Francisco, Honolulu, Guam, Manila, Porto 
Rico. San Antonio in Texas, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Fort 
Omaha, and Fort Riley. Some of these were established for strategic 
purposes. The amended Radiotelegraph Act of the United States 
came into operation on December 13, 1912. It established a system 
of complete Federal control over all wireless communication, and 
required all operators to be licensed, amateurs being placed under 
very severe restrictions and forbidden to transmit messages over 
more than 750 feet, with the object of preventing them from inter- 
fering with the operations of the State and commercial systems. 

Mr. Marconi has stated that his hope for wireless was the trans- 
mission of two hundred words a minute at one cent a word, and the 



1913- ] MOTOR CARS AND TRUCKS. 775 

general use of wireless telegraphy instead of the mails for a very 
large proportion of the personal correspondence now passing be- 
tween America and Europe. In January, 191 4, direct wireless com- 
munication across the Atlantic was accomplished between Sayville, 
Long Island, and Nauen, Germany. 

The use of the automobile truck has gained steadily in popularity. 
At the annual show (1913) in Madison Square Garden, New York 
City, thirty-one different manufacturers exhibited motor trucks, with 
a carrying capacity of from six hundred pounds to ten tons. 

Massachusetts is believed to lead all the States in its percentage 
of motor-propelled vehicles. More than one-third of its vehicles are 
motor-driven. On some of the roads near Boston, automobiles fur- 
nish more than 60 per cent of the traffic, and during the summer of 
19 1 3, 90 per cent of the vehicles using one of the leading State roads 
were of the self-propelled variety. 

Armored automobiles have been adopted by banks and safe de- 
posit companies for the transportation of money and other valuables. 
Each car is, in effect, a portable safe, lined with steel, and with the 
only entrance in the front of the vehicle, which carries two armed 
guards besides the chauffeur. Boston, it is said, has been the leader 
in displacing the old-fashioned bank messenger, with his satchel in 
hand, by this new method for transporting money and valuables. 
The use of horses in city trucking steadily declined in large cities. 
In Massachusetts during the fourteen years ending in 1914, the num- 
ber of horse-drawn vehicles declined 20 per cent. In the country in 
general sixteen cities showed declines. 

Though it is now twenty years since R. W. Paul and others first 
evolved the cinematograph from Edison's kinetoscope, the moving 
picture remains essentially the same as it was then. The business has 
developed into an enormous one all over the world, and has reached 
its highest development in the United States. Every little village 
has its "picture show," and more than five million people go to see 
the plays every day, at least $130,000,000 being taken at the doors 
in a single year. 

Aerology, the new science dealing with the exploration of the 
upper atmosphere, although still in its infancy, made great strides 
within the last few years. Within a short space of time the aero- 
nautical engineer, formerly content merely to produce a machine 
that would fly, has already begun to design aircraft with a given 
object, which has led to a marked differentiation of types. 

Wonderful progress in aviation resulted from advanced aero- 



776 AN AERONAUT CROSSES THE CONTINENT. [19H. 

dynamical knowledge, and in lesser degree from the increased skill 
and experience of aeroplane pilots. Two distinct features marked 
this development; namely, a vastly increased reliability of the aero- 
plane motor and the construction of the hydro-aeroplane, an air craft 
able to rise from and alight upon the surface of water. 

The flying machine is a mechanical wonder, but the first man who 
guided it across a continent is a physical marvel. On November 5, 
191 1, or five months almost to a day from the day he first learned to 
fly, C. P. Rogers signed the register at the Hotel Maryland, Pasa- 
dena, California, after he had flown across the North American con- 
tinent from Sheepshead Bay, L. L, New York to Pasadena, Cali- 
fornia, a distance of 4,231 miles, in 4,924 minutes actually in the air, 
and in 49 days of elapsed time from start to finish. In making this 
flight, he crossed three ranges of mountains, two deserts, and the 
great continental plain; he wrecked and rebuilt his machine four 
times, and replaced some parts of it eight times ; he rode through 
darkness and wind, rain and lightning, and landed safely after racing 
with express trains across the continent, mules in Missouri, jack- 
rabbits and coyotes in Texas, and antelope in Arizona. His engine 
had blown to pieces while he was 4,000 feet aloft over an inland sea, 
leaving him to "spiral" six miles to earth. He found the aeroplane 
a dangerous curiosity, and proved it a practicable vehicle of unlimited 
radius on land. 

This achievement fades before the wonderful development in the 
use of the aeroplane in military service. In 191 2, aviation was defi- 
nitely adopted as a new means of warfare by the leading nations of 
the world, and all of them have highly trained corps of aviators. 

Early in the year 191 3, the United States Senate had the painful 
duty of impeaching Judge Robert W. Archbald, of the Court of 
Commerce. He was convicted on five of the thirteen charges made 
by the House of Representatives, and was removed. He can never 
again hold any position under the United States. 

In New York State politics, the striking feature of 1913 was the 
impeachment and removal from office of Governor William Sulzer 
for the misuse of campaign contributions. The impeachment came 
as Tammany's last shot in a long fight against him as governor, be- 
cause of his refusal to appoint to office certain candidates suggested 
bv that organization. His trial followed before the High Court for 
Impeachments, consisting of the State Senate and the justices of 
the Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Edgar M. Cullen, and 
on October 17 he was removed from office by a vote of 43 to 12. 



1912.] CONVICTION OF BECKER AND THE GUNMEN. JJJ 

New York City experienced another great revulsion against the 
vice of the underworld and corruption in the Police Department dur- 
ing the year, as a result of the disclosures following the Rosenthal 
murder case, in June, 1912. A committee of the Legislature inves- 
tigated these conditions, the Curran Aldermanic Committee inquired 
into the police situation, and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Committee 
investigated the white-slave traffic. Four inspectors of police, besides 
other policemen, were sent to Blackwell's Island, and Charles S. 
Whitman, district attorney, did conspicuous work in revealing the 
graft which existed in the Police Department. Later Mr. Whitman's 
activities were exerted in the direction of unearthing graft in cam- 
paign contributions, by which the illegal operations of "bagmen" in 
collecting money from corporations and contractors were shown. 

In May, 191 4, Mr. Whitman brought to trial for the second time 
Charles Becker, ex-Lieutenant of Police, accused of instigating the 
murder of Herman Rosenthal, a gambler who was about to become 
a witness for the State against the New York police "system" of 
graft and extortion. Rosenthal had been murdered in July, 191 2. 
Becker and the four "gunmen" (whom Becker was accused of having 
employed to do the actual killing of Rosenthal) were tried in the 
autumn of that year and all found guilty of murder in the first degree 
and sentenced to death. Early in 191 4 the "gunmen," failing to get 
a new trial, were electrocuted. Becker, however, obtained from the 
Court of Appeals a new trial. At this trial he was again convicted 
and sentenced to death. His counsel, meanwhile, set about making 
an appeal of his case to the higher court. 

While matters in Mexico were at about their tensest point — that 
is, in the spring of 1914 — something like a state of civil war broke 
out in one of the mining districts of Colorado. In vain did the State 
endeavor to suppress the outbreak with its own troops. So violent 
became the upheaval, so bitter the striking miners, so ineffective the 
repressive efforts of the State, that more lives were lost in Colorado 
than in the landing of our naval force at Vera Cruz. In answer to 
an appeal from the Governor, President Wilson, late in April, sent a 
Federal force to the seat of trouble and order was restored, pending 
a submission of the points in controversy to a board of arbitration. 

The remoter consequences of a panic — the one of 1907 — were 
realized severely in a business depression extending through 191 3 
and well into 191 4, but in considerable part superinduced by influ- 
ences other than the panic. Among these were the Balkan war, 



77^ BUSINESS DEPRESSION. [1914 

which in its heavy demands on capital, forced the sale of American 
securities by European holders ; the rise in the cost of living, in wages 
and in raw material, making business less profitable ; a new and radi- 
cal tariff law, making industries affected by it hesitate amid their 
difficulties in making readjustments; the new Currency Act which, 
altho changes in our system, dating from the Civil War, had been 
long demanded, radically altered banking conditions all over the 
country and the provisions of which did not get into active operation 
until about the end of the summer of 1914; anti-trust legislation, 
some of it drastic and threatening to many business interests, bills 
being before Congress for several months, and some of them finally 
passing the House overwhelmingly — all these were causes which pro- 
longed the panic's aftermath a full year beyond the experience of 
the country with other great financial disturbances. 

The industry which, to the general public, was understood to have 
suffered most from these conditions was the railroads. Many old and 
prosperous lines found it difficult to do more than earn their bare 
dividends, to say nothing of adding to their surpluses ; several had to 
reduce their dividends; many reduced their expenses drastically, so 
that trains in considerable numbers were discontinued and thousands 
of men laid off, the number of idle freight cars reaching the maxi- 
mum of many years — about 250,000 in June, 191 4. In these condi- 
tions, Eastern railroads appealed to the Inter-State Commerce Com- 
mission for permission to raise their rates on freight five per cent, 
and hearings before the Commission in Washington were extended 
over many weeks. It was well on into midsummer when the Commis- 
sion rendered its decision.. To the financial and industrial world, 
this decision gave some relief, the early effects of which it was be- 
lieved would be seen in more stable business conditions. With 
Congress near the end of its session, its so-called "program" about 
completed, including the probable passage of some of the anti-trust 
bills amended so as to be less radical than previously expected, the 
whole country began to have faith in the coming of better times. 

This faith was strengthened by another condition, more impor- 
tant, perhaps, than any of these — the splendid promises of the crops, 
especially for the yield of wheat, both winter and spring, the total 
for both crops giving every sign of reaching 900,000,000 bushels, or 
much the largest wheat crop ever grown. 

Coincident with the rate case hearings before the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, were disclosures made by witnesses, and chiefly 
by Mr. Mellen, its former president, as to the means by which the 



I9I4-] TH E NEW HAVEN RAILROAD DISCLOSURES. 779 

splendid property of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail- 
road, within a few years had been brought to the verge of bank- 
ruptcy. The stock of this road for many years paid 8 per cent, divi- 
dends without difficulty, but now pays nothing, nor is it likely to 
pay anything in the immediate future. The road in 191 3 passed into 
the hands of other and abler managers, however, and its friends 
believe it is only a question of time when it will be restored to a 
condition that could be called prosperous. Some of the discoveries 
made as to methods pursued by former managers were not short of 
scandalous. One comment made on them was that Jay Gould "never 
did anything as bad." The Commission in its report to the Senate 
declared that the operations of the managers of the New Haven con- 
stituted "one of the most glaring instances of maladministration in 
all the history of American railroading." These managers had 
caused a loss to the stockholders of $65,800,000. 

The distribution of the stock of great railway and industrial 
corporations among an increasingly large number of persons, was a 
notable sign of investment changes in recent years. In 1914 the 
Pennsylvania railroad had 84,244 stockholders; whereas in 1901 it 
had only 27,540. The same is true of most of the large roads — for ex- 
ample, the Atchison had 36,340 in 191 4 against 13,143 in 1901 ; the 
St. Paul 13,700 against 5,340; the Great Northern 19,183 against 
1,683; tne New Haven 23,968 against 9,667. Women in the same 
period greatly increased their holdings in these stocks. Figures for 252 
corporations show that 130,000 women now have stock in railroads, 
and that 180,000 have stock in industrial corporations. Nearly one- 
half the stockholders of the Pennsylvania railroad are women — that 
is, 40,325 ; while in the American Telegraph and Telephone Com- 
pany are 28,188 women stockholders. 

The electric light and power companies had reached in 1914 a 
state of development truly marvelous. Ten years ago they repre- 
sented investments of $700,000,000, a formidable sum at that time. 
Present investments in these properties represent close to $2,000,- 
000,000, or nearly three times the amount of ten years ago. Even- 
tually, it is predicted that at least 85 per cent, of our industrial power 
will be supplied from electric stations. Indeed, such progress has been 
made in transportation by electric power that six electric stations 
placed at suitable intervals along a line of track across the continent, 
could now furnish all the power necessary to run trains from 
McKeesport, Maine, to San Francisco. 

The month of July brought to the harbor of New York two of 



780 THE COUNTRY'S POPULATION. [ I 9 I 4 

the world's largest ships, the Vaterland from Hamburg, the A qidtania 
from Liverpool, the former the largest ship ever built in any country, 
the latter the largest British ship. The . Vaterland 's tonnage is 
54,500, her length 950 feet, her carrying capacity more than 5,000 
persons; the Aquitania's tonnage 47,000, her length 901 feet, her 
carrying capacity 4,250 persons. 

The country was estimated to have reached in 191 4 a population 
of 98,781.324. — that is, the continent apart from our possessions be- 
yond seas. With the latter included, a total of 109,021,900 peop)e 
was estimated to be living within our borders. These figures were 
made up as those which "would be true if the same increase took 
place after 1910 as took place from 1900 to 1910." When a new 
census is taken in 191 5, no doubt exists that a continental total of 
100,000,000 will be returned. New York City, with its New Jersey 
and Westchester suburbs included, was estimated to have in 1914 a 
population of 6,501,000, London's total, including suburbs, being 
7,252,901. Following are the 1910 and the estimated 1914 totals 
for twenty-six leading cities: 

Cities 1914 1910 

New York 5,333,537 4,766,883 

Chicago 2,393,325 2,185,283 

Philadelphia 1,657,810 1,549,008 . 

St. Louis 734,667 687,029 

Boston 733,802 670,585 

Cleveland 639,431 560,663 

Baltimore 579,590 558,485 

Pittsburg 564,878 533,905 

Detroit 537,650 465,766 

Buffalo 454,112 423,715 

San Francisco 448,502 416,912 

Los Angeles 438,914 319,198 

Milwaukee 417,054 373,857 

Cincinnati 402,175 363,591 

Newark N J 389,106 347,469 

New Orleans 361,221 339,075 

Washington 353,378 331,069 

Minneapolis 343,466 214,744 

Seattle 313,029 237,194 

Jersey City 293,921 267,779 

Kansas City 281,911 248,381 

Indianapolis 259,413 233,650 

Portland, Ore 250,601 207,214 

Atlanta 179,292 154,839 

Richmond 134,917 127,628 

Dallas 111,986 92,104 

With this growth in population and in wealth, has come, however, 
a great increase in the cost of government. With the expenses of 
state, municipal, county and town governments added to the cost of 






1 91 4.] THE INCREASE IN THE COST OF GOVERNMENT. 781 

the federal government, our grand total reaches the colossal sum of 
$2,500,000,000 per year, an annual outlay nearly three times greater 
than the present funded debt of the Federal government. Thirty- 
four >ears ago (1880) this total cost of government stood at only 
$905,897,000. In 1890 it was only $1,118,999. The increase has 
been large, even when account is taken of the increase in population, 
for, while the per-capita cost in 1880 was $18,042, it is now $26.05. 
If an allowance were made for the decrease since 1880 in the inter- 
est charge for the Civil War debt, the per-capita for 1880 would be 
only $17, so that the increase ner capita since then would be $9, or 
about $45 for each family. 



INDEX. 



Acadia, devastation of, 78. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 460. 

Adams, John, 135, 141, 144, 253, 255 ; elected Vice- 
President, 334, 338 ; elected President, 342 ; 
death, 415. 

Adams, John Quincy, Anti-Federalist, 367 ; Sec. 
of State, 400 ; chosen President, 410 ; a Rep- 
resentative, 423 ; death, 459. 

Adams, Samuel, 138, 144, 255-6. 

Aguinaldo, 689, 690 ; capture of, 700-1. 

Alabama, admission of, 404. 

.Alabama Claims, the, 615. 

Alabama, a Confederate cruiser, 581. 

Alamance Creek, battle of, 141. 

Alamo, the, 445. 

Alaska, purchase of, 611 ; government of, 640 
boundary with Canada settled, 707. 

Allatoona Pass, capture of, 561. 

Algiers, treaty with, 339, 361, 362, 399. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, the, 345. 

Allen, Colonel Ethan, 150, 340. 

American Party (see Party). 

American System, the, 416. 

Ames, Fisher, 338. 

Amnesty Proclamation, 605, 607. 

Anderson, Major Robert, 486. 

Andre, Major, 301. 

Andros, Governor, 54, 58, 59. 

Anglo-Confederate Cruisers, 581. 

Ann, Skirmish at Fort, 206. 

Annapolis, naval school at, 448. 

Anti-Polygamy bill, 648. 

Anti-Renters, 440. 

Anti-Slavery Party (see Party). 

Anti-Slavery Society, the, 403. 

Antietam, battle of, 526-7. 

Appomattox Court-House, surrender at, 593. 

Arctic Expedition, 469, 638-40, 719. 

Arizona, remains in, 12. 

Arkansas, admission of, 431. 

Arkansas Post (Fort Hindman), capture of, 509. 

Arlington Heights, capture of, 488. 

Armstrong, General, 630. 

Army, the United States, 647. 

Arnold, Benedict, at Ticonderoga, 150 ; Fort 
Schuyler, 208 ; Saratoga, 214 ; Ridgefield, 236 ; 
treason of, 300 ; in Virginia, 315 ; death of, 316. 

Arthur, Chester A., 629 ; President, 635. 

Asbury, Bishop, 34:. 



Ashe, John, 137, 138, 271. 

Atlanta, battles at, 562. 

Augusta, capture of, 312. 

Averysboro, battle of, 586. 

Aviation, 735. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, 40. 

Baker, Colonel E. D., 493. 

Balboa, 27. 

Ball's Bluff, skirmish at, 493. 

Baltimore, 394, 488. 

Bank, the United States, 337, 424, 426. 

Bankrupt Law, the, 627. 

Banks, Nathaniel P., 475, 520, 576, 578. 

Banks, savings, 403. 

Barnburners (see Party). 

Barton, Lieut.-Col., captures Prescott, 238. 

Battleship, model of, World's Fair, 672. 

Baylor's Massacre, 265. 

Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T., 457, 486, 490, 499, 503^ 

Belknap, William W., 621-2. 

Bell, Alexander G., 626. 

Becker, Lieut. Charles, conviction of twice, 
777- 

Bemis's Heights, battle of, 213. 

Bennington, battle of, 210. 

Benton, Thomas H., 427. 

Bentonville, battle of, 586. 

Berkeley, Governor, 40, 60, 88. 

Bermuda Hundred, battle at, 572. 

Bible Society, the American, 402. 

Big Bethel, skirmish at, 489. 

Big Black River, battle at, 533. 

Birney, J. G., 443. 

Black, Jeremiah S., 476. 

Black Friday, 614. 

Blackstock Hill, attack on, 297. 

Bladensburg, battle of, 393. 

Blaine, James G., Secretary of State, 632 ; nomi- 
nated for President, 642 ; resignation of, 660 ; 
death of, 663. 

Bland Silver Bill, 627. 

Blennerhassett, Harman, 365. 

Blockade, the, 493, 582. 

Blue Lights, the, 390. 

Boone, Daniel, 340. 

Booth, J. Wilkes, 595. 

Boston, massacre at, 140 ; tea-party, 142 ; port 
bill, 143 ; evacuation of, 167 ; fire in, 616, 664. 

Bowling Green, evacuation of, 498. 

" Boxers," the, 698-700. 



7H 



INDEX. 



Braddock, General Edward, 77. 

Bragg, General Braxton, 499, 504, 508, 534-8. 

Brandt, Joseph, 14, 266, 267, 277. 

Brandywine, battle of, 229. 

Breckenridge, John C, 475, 499, 508, 620. 

Brewton's Hill, battle of, 268. 

Brier Creek, battle of, 271. 

Bristoe Station, action at, 553. 

Brooklyn Bridge, 637. 

Brown, John, 474, 477. 

Bryan, William J., 673-4, 698. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 467. 

Buchanan, James, 475. 

Bucktails, the (see Party). 

Buell, General D. C, 498. 504. 

Buena Vista, battle of, 454. 

Bull Run, battle of, 490. 

Bunker Hill, battle of, 151. 

Burgoyne's Campaign, 204-19. 

Burke, Edmund, 140, 354. 

Burnside, General A. E., 512, 527, 541. 

Burr, Colonel Aaron, 342, 347, 354, 362, 365. 

Butler, Benjamin F., 488, 509, 572, 580, 607, 662. 

Butler, John, 263, 266, 267. 

Cadwallader, General S., 191, 196, 256. 
Caldwell, Rev. James, 298 ; Mrs., 299. 
Calhoun, John C, 372, 400, 409, 417, 470. 
California, admission of, 464. 
Calvert, George (Lord Baltimore), 41. 
Cambridge settled, 46. 
Camden, battle of, 294. 
Cameron, Donald J., 622. 
Campbell, Col. William (American), 295, 313. 
Campbell, Lieut.-Col. (British), 267, 270. 
Canada, boundary with Alaska settled, 707. 
Capitol, location of national, 337, 346 ; rebuilding 

of, 415 ; extension of, 469. 
Carleton, Sir Guy,Gov. of Canada, 163,165,203, 323. 
Carlisle, Indian school at, 631. 
Carnifex Ferry, battle at, 489. 
Carolinas, settlement of, 62 ; war in the, 286. 
Carpets, use of, 353. 
Carrick's Ford, battle at, 489. 
Carteret, Sir George, 60. 
Carthage, battle of, 489. 
Cartier, James, 29. 
Cass, Lewis, 423, 432, 460. 
Castine, attack on Fort, 276. 
Catholics, the Roman, 347. 
Caucus, system of the, 364. 
Cavite, 684. 

Cedar Creek, battle of, 576. 
Cedar Mountain, battle of, 524. 
Census, the United States, 628, 697. 
Centennial Year of the Republic, 621. 
Cerro Gordo, capture of, 457. 
Cervera, Admiral, 681-2. 
Chambersburg, burning of, 574. 
Champe, John, the spy, 304. 
Champion Hills, battle of, 533. 
Champlain, Samuel, 67. 
Chancellorsville, battle of, 542. 
Chantilly, battle of, 524. 
Charleston, settlement of, 63 ; British capture of, 

284 ; British evacuate, 323 ; fall of, 585. 
Charlestown settled, 46. 
Charter Oak, the, 54. 



Chase, Salmon P., 485. 
Chattanooga, battle of, 531-7. 
Chatterton's Hill, attack on, 184. 
Cheat Mountain, battle of, 489. 
Chemung, battle of, 277. 
Cherry Valley, massacre in, 266. 
Chicago, settlement of, 404; fire at, 6*5. 
Chickamauga, battle of, 534. 
Chickasaw Bayou, attack on, 509. 
China, " Boxers' " rebellion in, 698-700. 
Chinese immigration, 640. 
Chippewa, battle of, 391. 
Cholera, the Asiatic, 425, 661. 
Christian Commission, the, 598. 
Chrysler's Field, battle of, 380. 
Civil Service reform, 625, 641-2. 
Clark, Colonel Geo. R., 265. 

Clay, Henry, Speaker of the House, 372 ; favors a 
tariff, 401 ; presidential candidate, 409 ; Secre- 
tary of State, 412 ; offers tariff compromise, 
424 ; presidential candidate, 426, 434, 443 ; 
offers Omnibus bill, 463 ; death, 469. 
Cleopatra's Needles, 628. 
Cleveland, Grover, 642, 643, 660, 663-4. 
Clinton, capture of Fort, .238. 
Clinton, DeWitt, 367, 372, 414. 
Clinton, Governor George, 200, 238, 363, 372. 
Clinton, General Tames, 238, 277. 
Clinton, Sir Henry, 151 ; at Bunker Hill, 155 ; at 
Charleston, 170 , at Brooklyn, 178 ; at New- 
port, 189 ; ascends Hudson, 238, 274 ; at Phila- 
delphia, 260 ; at Monmouth, 261 ; at Charles- 
ton, 284. 

Coal, the use of, 348. 

Coal-M'~C"s, anthracite, great strike of, 705. 

Cooo, „wcll, 406, 476. 
Cockburn, Admnal, 389, 393. 

Cold Harbor, battle of, 571. 

Colfax, Schuyler, 611, 620. 

Coligny, Admiral, 29. 

Colleges, founding ol, 89, 401. 

Colonial Life, 84. 

Colorado, admission of, 619. 

Columbian celebration, 1892, 661/ naval review, 
666-7. 

Columbus, Christopher, 21. 

Commission, the electoral, of 1877, 623-4. 

Commissioners, Peace, 259, 267, 479. 

Committees of Correspondence, 143. 

Common Sense, Paine's, 172. 

Compromise, the Missouri, 406. 

Compromise, the tariff, 424. 

Concord, battle of, 146. 

Confederation, articles of, 262, 307, 328. 

Congress, a Peace, 479. 

Congress, Constitutional, 335, 337, 364, 462. 

Congress, Continental, 144, 151, 161, 262. 

Conkling, Roscoe, resignation of, 633 ; death 
of, 650. 

Connecticut, settlement of, 53. 

Connecticut Farms, burning of, 299. 

Conscription, Federal and Confederate, 555. 

Constitution, the, "Old Ironsides," 377. 

Constitution, formation of, 331 ; adoption of, 333; 
amendments to, 336, 361, 605, 606, 614 ; cett- 
tenary of adoption of, 649-50. 

Continental Currency, 283, 306. 

Convention, the Hartford, 395. 



INDEX. 



785 



Convention, the Constitutional. 332. 

Conwav, General Thomas, 255-6. 

Cooper, J. Fenimore, 467. 

Cooper, Peter, 622. 

Corinth, attack on, 506. 

Cornwallis, Earl, at Brooklyn, 178 ; in New Jer- 
sey, 178. 187 ; at Trenton. 197 : at Camden, 
294 ; in North Carolina, 295 ; pursues Greene, 
309 : in Virginia. 316. 

Corwin, Thomas 464. 

Cotton, cultivation of, 348. 

Cotton-gin, the, 348. 

Cowpens, battle of, 308. 

Crawford, William H., 400, 409. 

Crawford, George W., 461. 

Credit Mobilier, the, 618. 

Creek Indians. 14, 388. 412. 

Cross-Keys, affair at, 520. 

Cross-Roads, battle of, 293. 

Crown Point. 79, 80, 150. 

Cruisers, converted, 696. 

Cuba, 468; revolution in. 671 2, 676-7; Constitu- 
tion adopted, 701 ; reciprocity, 706. 

Currency, Confederate, 530, 583. 

Curreney, Continental, 161, 283. 

Cushing, Caleb, 442, 471. 

Custer, General G A., 558, 591, 592, 618, 623. 

Czolgosz, Leon, 701-2. 

Dade Massacre, the, 429. 

Dahlgren. Ulric. death of, 559. 

Dallas. George M., 44 2 - 

Dana. James D., 467. 

Danbury Tryon at, 235. 

Darrah. Lydia. 244. 

Dartmoor, prison at, 398. 

Davis Jefferson, 471, 479, 5891 594- 

Deane Silas. 200, 351. 

Dearborn, Fort, 375, 4°4* 4°7- 

Dearborn, General Henry, 213, 355, 373. 377- 

Debt. National, 597, 608. 

Decatur, Lieutenant, 362, 378. 

Delaware. Lord, 37. 

Democrats (see Party). 

D'Estaing, Count, 262, 279. 

Detroit, 373. 43 2 

Dewey, Admiral George, 683. 

Dieskau, Baron, 79. 

Dingley Bill, 676. 

Donelson, capture of Fort, 496-8. 

Dongan, Governor, 58. 

Doniphan, Colonel, 452. 

Donop, Count, 191, 196, 241. 

Dorchester Heights, 151, 167. 

Douglas, Stephen A., the " Little Giant," 472, 

479, 485, 607. 

Dow, Neal, 629. 
Drake, Sir Francis. 31. 
Dranesville, skirmish at, 493. 
Dred Scott Decision, the, 476. 
Drummond. William, 40. 
Dunmore, Governor, 157, 159. 
Duplessis, Captain 241. 
Dupont, Admiral S. F., 554. 

Eari.v. General Jubal A., 574. 
Etran Patrick, 660. 



El Caney, 690. 

Elizabethtown setded, 60 ; attacked, 200. 

Ellsworth, Colonel E. E., 488. 

Emancipation Proclamation, the, 531. 

Embargo Act, the, 367. 

Episcopalians, the, 347. 

Ericsson, John, 514, 655. 

Erie Canal, the, 413. 

Erie, capture of Fort, 391-3. 

Erie Railway, the, 468. 

Evans, Captain Robert, 692. 

Eutaw Springs, battle of, 313. 

Ewell, General R. S., 550, 568, 589. 

Ewing, Thomas, 461. 

Fairfax, Lord Thomas, 129. 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 520. 

Fair, the World's, 471. 

Falmouth burned, 157. 

Farmers' Alliance, the (see Party). 

Farragut, Admiral D. G., 383, 509, 579. 

Federalist, the, 333. 

Federalists, the (see Party). 

Fenians, the, 610. 

Ferguson, Major Patrick, 265, 287, 295. 

Field, Cyrus W., 609-10. 

Filibusters, 671-2. 

Fillmore, Millard, 460, 464. 

Fishdam Creek, skirmish at, 297. 

Fisher, capture of Fort, 580. 

Fishing Creek, battle of, 295. 

Five Forks, battle of, 588. 

Flag, origin of American. 207, 403. 

Flags, the Confederate, 649. 

Florida, purchase of, 404 ; admission of, ,143 

Floyd, John B., 476, 497- 

Foote, Commodore, 496, 503. 

Foreign Contract Labor Bill, 648-9. 

Forrest, N. B., 497, 567, 578. 

Forsyth, John, 427, 486. 

France, treaty with, 259, 360. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 76, 87, 121, 139, 201, 332. 

Franklin, General W. B., 523 526, 528. 

Franklin, state of, 341. 

Franklin, battle of, 566. 

Fraser, General, 205, 215, 216. 

Frazier's Farm, battle of, 523. 

Fredericksburg, battle of, 528. 

Free Coinage of Silver, 668, 672-3. 

Freedman's Bureau, 606. 

Free Soilers, the (see Party). 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 443. 

Fremont, Colonel J. C, 452, 465, 475, 489, 5a©. 

Frobisher, Martin, 31. 

Frolic, capture of, 378. 

Frye. Colonel, 76. 

Fugitive Slave Law, the, 466. 

Fulton, Robert. 365. 

Funston, Frederick, 700-1. 

Gage, General, 139, 145, 146, 167. 

Gaines's Mill, battle of, 522. 

Gallatin, Albert, 355, 356, 369. 

Gansevoort, Lieutenant-Colonel, 207. 

Garfield, James A., 629, 632 ; assassination of 

654- 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 424. 



786 



INDEX. 



Gasp6e burned, 141. 

Gates, General Horatio, 165, 191, 212, 294, 307. 

Geiger, Emily, 313. 

Genet, "Citizen," 338-9. 

Georgia, settlement of, 65. 

Gerry, Elbridge, 332, 344, 372, 396. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 548-53. 

Gettysburg Cemetery, dedication of, 556. 

Ghost dances, 656. 

Gibbes, Robert, story of, 272. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 31. 

Gillmore, General Q. A., 512, 554. 

Goffe, Colonel William, 51. 

Gourges, Dominique de, 31. 

Grant, General U. S., at Belmont, 490; Fort 
Donelson, 496 ; Vicksburg, 533 ; Chattanooga, 
535 ; lieutenant-general, 560 ; overland cam- 
paign, 567 ; before Richmond, 573 ; supports 
Congress against Johnson, 607 ; elected Presi- 
dent, 611; re-elected, 616; third term consid- 
ered, 629 ; death of, 644-5. 

Grasse, Count de, 318. 

Great Bridge, battle at, 158. 

Greeley, Horace, 429, 616-17. 

Greenbackers (see Party). 

Greene, General Nathaniel, 151, 177, 186-7 : Bran- 
dywine, 229 ; quartermaster-general, 258 ; 
Monmouth, 260 ; Quaker Hill, 263 ; Spring- 
field, 299 ; succeeds Gates, 307 ; retreat, 309 ; 
at Guilford Court-House, 311 ; Eutaw Springs, 
313 ; Charleston, 323. 

Green Spring, battle of, 317-8. 

Greenwich, battle of, 274. 

Grey, " No Flint," 231, 265. 

Grierson, Colonel B. H., 557. 

Griswold, capture of Fort, 316. 

Guam, capture of, 688-9. 

Guerriere, the, 377. 

Guilford Court-House, battle of, 311. 

Guiteau, Charles J., 634. 

Hadley, attack on, 50. 

Hale, Captain Nathan, 181 ; Colonel Nathan, 205, 

656. 
Hale, John P., 471. 
Half-breeds (see Party). 
Hall, Professor James, 467. 
Halleck, General H. W., 489, 495, 502, 504. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 320, 332, 333, 335, 336, 345, 

357. 362. 
Hamlin, Hannibal, 478. 
Hampton School for Indians, 630. 
Hancock, General W. S., 529, 549, 568, 570. 
Hancock, John, 139. 
Hanging Rock, battle of, 293. 
Hanover Court-House, skirmish at, 521. 
Hardee, General W. J., 499, 562, 585. 
Hard-shells (see Party). 
Harlem Plains, battle of, 183. 
Harmar, General, 337. 
Harper's Ferry, capture of, 526. 
Harrison, Benjamin, 651-4. 
Harrison, Mrs. Benjamin, death of, 661. 
Harrison, Carter, 681. 

Harrison, General Wm. H., 370, 375, 431, 434, 43 8. 
Harrison's Landing, retreat to, 522. 
Hart, Nancy, 291. 
Hatteras, expedition to, 494. 



Haverhill, attack on, 71. 

Haw River, battle at, 310. 

Hawaii, treaty with, 663, 664; annexation of, 
696-7. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 467. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., 622, 624 ; policy of, 625, 
630 ; death of, 662. 

Hayes, Mrs. Rutherford B., 631-2. 

Hayne, execution of Colonel Isaac, 313. 

Hayne, Robert Y., 421. 

Heath, General, 235. 

Heintzelman, General S. P., 490. 

Hendricks, Thomas A., 622. 

Henry Affair, the, 371. 

Henry, capture of Fort, 496. 

Henry, Joseph, 467. 

Henry, Patrick, 136, 138, 144, 333, 344. 

Henry, Prince, of Prussia, 704. 

Herald, the New York, 429. 

Herkimer, General, 207. 

Hessians, the, 188. 

Hill, General A. P., 522, 543, 588. 

Hobkirk's Hill, battle of, 311. 

Hobson, Richmond P., 688. 

Holly Springs, capture of depot at, 509. 

Hood, General J. B., 526, 561-2, 567. 

Hooker, General Joseph, 517, 526, 536. 

Hooker, Thomas, 53. 

Horry, Colonel, 288. 

Horse Heads named, 279. 

Horse Neck, battle of, 273. 

Houston, Sam., 445. 

Howard, General O. O., 549, 561, 564. 

Howe, Admiral (Lord), 176, 190, 263. 

Howe, General, Boston, 151 ; sails to Halifax, 
167 ; Brooklyn, 176 ; White Plains, 184 ; proc« 
lamation, 189 ; Brandywine, 228 ; Philadel- 
phia, 232 ; Whitemarsh, 243 ; resigns, 259. 

Hubbardton, battle of, 265. 

Hudson, Henry, 55, 67, 101. 

Huguenots, the, 63. 

Hull, General William, 373, 374. 

Hull, Captain Isaac, 377. 

Hunkers (see Party). 

Illinois, admission of, 404. 

Impressment of seamen, 369. 

Independence, Declaration of, 173 ; signed, 175 ; 

first celebration of, 204. 
Indiana, admission of, 400. 
Indian schools, 630-1, 647. 
Indians, North American, 13. 
Internal Improvements, 413. 
International Copyright Bill, 658. 
Interstate Commerce Bill, 649. 
Iowa, admission of, 460. 
Irving, Washington, 366, 467. 
Island No. 10, capture of, 503. 
Isthmus of Panama, canal on, 708 ; assumed by 

United States, 710, 711. 
Israel, Hannah Irwin, 230. 
Iuka, action at, 506. 

Jackson, Andrew, 293 ; in Alabama, 388-9 ; New 
Orleans, 396 ; Florida, 403 ; presidential can- 
didate, 409 ; chosen President, 417. 

Jackson, T. J. (" Stonewall"), at Bull Run, 490; 
the Shenandoah, 520 ; Mechanicsville, 522 ; 
Chancellorsville, 542 ; death, 545-6. 






INDEX. 



787 



Jamestown, settlement of, 34. 

Japan, treaty with, 469. 

Jasper, Sergeant, 171, 268, 279. 

Jay, John, 333, 335, 338. 

Jefferson, Thomas, writes Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 172 ; elected Vice-President, 342 ; 
elected President, 347, 354 ; death of, 415. 

Jesuit missionaries, 11, 67. 

Johnson, Andrew, inaugurated President, 603 ; 
reconstruction policy, 604 ; impeached, 607. 

Johnson, Reverdy, 461. 

Johnson, Richard M., 431. 

Johnson, Sir John, 266-7, 2 77- 

Johnson, Sir William, 79, 266-7. 

Johnston, General Albert Sydney, 476, 498, 500. 

Johnston, General Joseph E., Bull Run, 490; 
Peninsular campaign, 516 ; wounded, 521 ; at 
Jackson, 533 ; Atlanta campaign, 560 ; super- 
seded by Hood, 561 ; North Carolina, 586 ; 
surrender, 593. 

Johnstown flood, the, 655. 

Jones, Paul, 208, 281. 

Junta, the Cuban, 671. 

Kalb, Baron de, 202, 293, 294. 

Kansas, 472, 474. 

Kearney, General Stephen Watts, 452. 

Kearney, General Philip, 517, 521, 523, 524. 

Kearsarge, the. 581. 

Kegs, battle of the, 248. 

Kelly's Ford, skirmish at, 553. 

Kenesaw Mountain, battle of, 561. 

Kentucky, admission of, 340. 

Kettle Creek, battle of, 270. 

Kid, Captain, 59. 

Kieft, Governor, 57. 

Kilpatrick, General Judson C, 558, 564. 

King, Rufus, 332, 333, 364, 400. 

King's Mountain, battle of, 296. 

Kingston burned, 239. 

Kitchel, Anna, 283. 

Klondike, the, 675-6. 

Know Nothings (see Party). 

Knowhon, Colonel, 183. 

Knox, General Henry, 233, 320, 335, 

Knoxville, siege of, 541. 

Knyphausen, General Baron, 297, 299. 

Kosciusko, Thaddeus, 202. 

Kossuth, Louis, 469. 

Koszta, Martin, 472. 

Labor troubles, 625-6, 657. 705. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 201, 229, 255, 259, 315, 410. 

Lake Erie, battle of, 383, 387. 

La Salle, Cavalier Robert de, 68, 75. 

Laurens, Colonel, 279, 320, 323. 

Lawrence sacked, 558. 

Lee, Captain Henry, 250, 276, 300, 310-3. 

Lee, Fort, abandoned, 187. 

Lee, General Robert E., 457 ; joins Virginia, 488 ; 
command of army, 521 ; enters Maryland, 
525 ; Chancellorsville, 542 ; enters Maryland, 
S47 ; overland campaign, 568 ; before Rich- 
mond, 573 ; retreat, 590 ; surrender, 593. 

Lee, Major-General Charles, 157 ; at Charleston, 
170 ; New York, 176 ; White Plains, 185 ; cap- 
tured, 187 ; exchanged, 238 ; Monmouth, 260 ; 
dismissed, 262, 294. 



Lee, Richard Henry, 144, 172. 

Leisler, Captain, 59. 

Leon, Ponce de, 27. 

Lewis and Clarke, expedition of,*36r. 

Lexington, battle of, 146. 

Lexington, capture of, 489. 

Liberty, sons of, and Liberty Tree, 137. 

Library of Congress, 358. 

Life, close of eighteenth century, 349-53. 

Life, Colonial, 84. 

Light-Horse Harry (see Captain Henry Lee). 

Lincoln, Abraham, elected President, 479 ; inau- 
guration, 484 ; calls for troops, 488 ; issues 
emancipation proclamation, 531 ; at Gettys- 
burg dedication, 556 ; re-elected President, 
575 ; assassination, 595. 

Lincoln, General Benjamin, 212, 270, 279, 284, 320. 
321. 

Lind, Jennie, 468. 

Little Belt, the, 369. 

Little Big Horn River, battle at, 623. 

Livingston, William, 332, 360. 

Loco-Focos, (see Party). 

Longfellow, Henry W., 467. 

Long Island, battle of, 177. 

Longstreet, General James S., 517, 520, 522, 534, 
54i. 549. 569- 

Lookout Mountain, battle of, 536-7. 

Lopez, General, 468. 

Louisburg captured, 74, 80. 

Louisiana, purchase of, 360 ; admission of, 371 ; 
secession of, 479 ; political troubles in, 625. 

Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, 712. 

Lovelace, Governor, 87. 

Lundy's Lane, battle of, 391. 

Lyon, Captain Nathaniel, 489. 

Madison, James, 331, 332/355, 368. 

Mafia, the, 658-9. 

Magruder, General J. B., 489, 516, 547. 

Maine, admission of, 405. 

"Maine" inquiry, the, 679-80. 

Majorabanks, Major, 325. ' 

Malvern Hill, battle of, 523. 

Manassas, battles of, 490, 524. 

Manila Bay, 685. 

Manning, story of, 314. 

Map of Boston and Concord, 148 ; Bunker Hill, 
153 ; Burgoyne's campaign, 219 ; Carolinas 
and Georgia, 272 ; Chattanooga, 536 ; Civil 
War, East, 505 ; West, 563 ; Colonies, 138 : 
Discoveries, 29 ; Donaldson's Point, 503 : 
French and Indian Wars, 72 ; Gettysburg, 
549 ; Hudson River, 185 ; Long Island, 178 ; 
Manila Bay, 683-688 ; Mexican War. 454 ; 
New England, 47 ; New Jersey and Pennsyl- 
vania, 230 ; Peninsula, 516 ; Richmond, cam- 
paign before, 569 ; Territorial Growth, 332 ; 
Vicksburg, 534 ; War of 1812-14, 374 ; World, 
23-4 ; Yorktown, 320. 

Marcy, Governor William L., 358, 471. 

Marie Antoinette, 259. 

Marion, General Francis, 287, 296, 312, 313. 

Marquette, James, 68, 75. 

Marshall, John, 344, 359, 401, 428. 

Martin, Governor, 168. 

Maryland, settlement of, 41. 

Mason and Slidell Affair, the, 494. 



788 



INDEX. 



Masonic Party, the Anti- (see Party). 

Massachusetts Bay, settlement of, 46. 

Maxamilian in Mexico, 608. 

McAllister, capture of Fort, 565. 

McClellan, General George B., supersedes Scott, 
492-3; Peninsular Campaign, 515; super- 
sedes Hooker, 525; at Antietam, 526; is 
superseded by Burnside, 527. 

McClernand, General John A., 496, 509. 

McCrea, Jane, murder of, 211. 

McCulloch, General Benjamin, 511. 

McDonough, Commodore, 292. 

McDowell, General Irvin, 490, 519. 

McHenry, bombardment of Fort, 394. 

McHenry, James, 344. 

McKinley Bill, the, 656. 

McKinley, William, nomination of, 672, 697; 
sketch of life, 673-4; re-elected to presi- 
dency in 1896, 698; assassinaton of, 701-2. 

McPherson, General James B., 560-2. 

Meade, General George G., supersedes McClel- 
lan, 548; at Mine Run, 553-4; Overland 
campaign, 567; before Richmond, 587. 

Mecklenburg Declaration, 160. 

Mercer, General Hugh, 197. 198. 

Meridians, standard, 638. 

Merrimac, the, 513. 

Merritt, Major-General, 694. 

Meteoric shower, 427. 

Methodists, the, 347. 

Mexico, war with in Polk's administration, 448- 
459, insurrection in on our Southwestern 
border, 742, 761; Madero's election as Presi- 
dent of, 762; Huerta made President of, 
762-766; Vera Cruz occupied by United 
States, 767. 

Mifflin, Fort, 242. 

Mifflin, General, 180, 245. 

MJles, General Nelson A., 693-4. 

Miller, Colonel, 391, 420. 

Mills Bill, the, 651. 

Mine explosion before Petersburg, 574. 

Mine Run, affair at, 554. 

Minnesota, admission of, 176. 

Mischianza at Philadelphia, 259. 

Missionary Society, Foreign, 402. 

Mississippi, admission of, 404. 

Missouri, admission of, 406, 410. 

Missouri Compromise, 406. 

Mobile settled, 68, 405. 

Modoc Indians, the, 618. 

Monitor, the, 513. 

Monk's Corner, battle of, 284. 

Monmouth, battle of, 260. 

Monroe Doctrine, the, 409. 

Monroe, Fortress, 488. 

Monroe, James, 333, 360, 400, 423. 

Montcalm, Marquis de, 79. 

Monterey, capture of, 451. 

Montgomery, Fort taken, 238. 

Montgomery. General Richard, 163. 

Monticello, Jefferson's home at, 415. 

Moody and Sankey, 627. 

Moore, Colonel Andrew, 168. 

Moore's Creek, battle of, 169. 

Morgan, General Daniel, 163, 215, 216, 307. 

Morgan, General John H., 558. 

Mormons, the, 440, 476. 



Morrill, Senator Lot M., 622. 
Morris, Gouverneur, 332, 414. 
Morris, Robert, 195, 208, 307, 332-3. 
Morrison Bill, the, 641. 
Morristown, army at, 283. 
Morse, Professor Samuel F. B., 442. 
Motte, Fort, 312; Mrs., 312. 
Moultrie, Colonel William, 170, 270. 
Moultrie, Fort, 170, 284. 
Mound builders, the, 9. 
Mt. Pelee, eruption of, 704. 
Mugwumps, (see Party). 
Murchison, Charles F., 651. 
Murfreesborough, battle of, 508. 
Murphy, Francis, 627. 
Murray, Robert, 182. 
Musgrove's Mill, storming of, 295. 
Mutiny Act, 136. 

Mutiny of Connecticut troops, 298; at Morris- 
town, 306; of New Jersey troops, 307. 

Napoleon Buonaparte, 345, 367. 

Nashville, battle of, 567. 

Navigation Acts, 38. 

Navy, the United States, 646. 

Nebraska, admission of, 611. 

Necessity, Fort, 76. 

Negro soldiers, 531. 

Nelson's Ferry, skirmish at, 295. 

Nevada, admission of, 611. 

New England in seventeenth century, 89. 

Newfoundland fisheries, 627-8. 

New Haven Railroad, financial prostration of 

777-779- 
New London burned, 316. 
New Madrid, capture of, 503. 
New Netherland, 56, 60. 
New Orleans, capture of, 510. 
New Orleans Exposition, the, 638. 
Newtown (Elmira) burned, 278. 
New York, settlement of, 55, evacuation of, 

323; fire in, 429; riot in, 556; Greater, 

669, 676; Public Library opened in, 772; 

Pennsylvania Terminal opened in, 773; 

Grand Central Terminal opened in, 774. 
Niagara Falls, ship sent over, 420. 
Norfolk burned, 159. 
North, Lord, 259, 323. 
Northmen, the, 20. 
Northwestern Territory, 33:-2. 
Nullification, 416, 424. 

Oglethorpe, James Edward, 65. 
Ohio, admission of, 359; floods in 771. 
Oklahoma, Indian troubles in, 647-8; opened, 

655- 
Omnibus Bill, the, 463. 
Orangeburg, Fort, captured, 312. 
Oregon, boundary of, 448; admision of, 477. 
Oregon, the battleship, 692. 
Oriskany, battle of, 207. 
Osceola, a Seminole chief, 429. 
Oswego, capture of Fort, 79, 391. 
Otis, James, 135, 139, 141. 
Overland campaign, the, 567. 
Oyster Point, (Charleston), 63. 



INDEX. 



789 



Pacific Railroad, 612. 

Paine, Thomas, 172. 

Palo Alto, battle of, 449. 

Palma, Senor Estrada, first President of Cuba, 706. 

Panama, 710, 721, 722, 755. 

Panic of 1833, 426 ; of 1837, 433 ; of 1873, 618 ; of 

1893, 664, 668. 
Paoli, massacre at, 231. 
Parcel Post, the, 768. 
Farnell, Charles Stewart, 628. 
Partisan Warfare, 286. 
Party, political : 

Anti-Masonic, nominates Wirt and Ellmaker, 
426, 629. 

Anti-Slavery, or Liberty, nominates Birney, 
434 ; Birney, 443. 

Barnburner— anti-slavery Democrats, 357. 

Bucktail, 357. 

Constitutional Union, nominates Bell and 
Everett, 478. 

Democratic, 336 ; nominates Jackson and Cal- 
houn, 417; Jackson and Van Buren, 426; 
Van Buren and Johnson, 431 j Van Buren, 
434 ; Polk and Dallas, 442 ; Cass and But- 
ler, 460 ; Pierce and King, 470 ; Buchanan 
and Breckenridge, 475 j Breckenridge and 
Lane, Douglas and Johnson, 478-9 ; Mc- 
Clellan and Pendleton, 575 ; Seymour and 
Blair, 611 ; Greeley and Brown, 616 ; Til- 
den and Hendricks, 622 ; Hancock and 
English, 629 ; Cleveland and Hendricks, 
642 ; Cleveland and Stevenson, 660 ; Bryan 
and Sewell, 672 ; Bryan and Stevenson, 
698. 

Farmers' Alliance, 657. 

Federal, 336 ; nominates Adams and Pinck- 
ney, 342 ; Adams and Pinckney, 346 ; 
Pinckney and King, 364 ; Pinckney and 
King, 368; Clinton and Ingersoll, 372; 
King, 400. 

Free-Soil, nominates Van Buren and Adams, 
460; Hale and Julian, 471. 

Greenbackers, 622. 

Greenback Labor, 629. 

Hard-shell— extreme Democrats, 357. 

Half-breeds, 633. 

Hunker — pro-slavery Democrats, 357. 

Know Nothing, or American, nominates Fill- 
more and Donelson, 474-5 ; Bell and Ev- 
erett, 478. 

Loco-Focos, 357. 

Mugwumps, 642. 

People's, or Populist, nominates Butler and 
West, 642 ; Weaver and Field, 661 ; Bryan 
and Watson, 673. 

Prohibition, Dow and Thompson, 629 ; St. 
John and Daniel, 642 ; Bidwell and Cran- 
field, 661. 

Republican (Democratic), 336, 357 ; nominates 
Washington, 338 ; Jefferson, 342 ; Jeffer- 
son and Burr, 347 ; Jefferson and Clin- 
ton, 363; Madison and Clinton, 368; 
Madison and Gerry, 372 ; Monroe and 
Tompkins, 400 ; Monroe and Tompkins, 
406 ; Adams, Crawford, Calhoun, Clay, 
Jackson, 409. 

Republican, the Liberal, nominates Greeley 
and Brown, 6j6. 



Party, political — Continued : 

Republican, the National, nominates, J. Q. 

Adams, 417 ; Clay and Sergeant, 426. 
Silver-Gray Whig, 464. 
Soft-shell— moderate Democrats, 357. 
Stalwarts, 633. 

The Republican, nominates Fremont and 
Dayton, 475 ; Lincoln and Hamlin, 478 ; 
Lincoln and Johnson, 575 ; Grant and 
Colfax, 611 ; Grant and Wilson, 616 ; 
Hayes and Wheeler, 622 ; Garfield and Ar- 
thur, 629 ; Blaine and Logan, 642 ; Har- 
rison and Reed, 660; McKinley and Ho- 
bart, 672 ; McKinley and Roosevelt, 697. 
Whig, 427 ; nominates Harrison, McLean, and 
Webster, 431 ; Harrison and Tyler, 434 ; 
Clay and Frelinghuysen, 443 ; Taylor and 
Fillmore, 460 ; Scott and Graham, 470. 
Woman's Rights, 643. 
Patrons of Industry, 619. 
Paulus Hook, capture of, 276. 
Peacemaker, explosion of the, 442. 
Pea Ridge, battle of, 511. 
Peninsular campaign, the, 515.' 
Penn, William, 60. 
Pennsylvania, settlement of, 60. 
Pension rolU , the, 654. 
Perdicaris and Morocco, 713. 
Perry, Oliver H., 383. 
Perryville, skirmish at, 504. 
Philip, Captain, 692, 
Philip, King, 13, 49. 

Philippines, the, civil government in, 701, 706. 
Pickens, Colonel, 270. 
Pickens, Fort, 480. 

Pickens, General Andrew, 287, 310, 312, 313. 
Pickering, Timothy, 344. 
Pierce, General Franklin, 470. 
Pierrepont, Edwards, 621. 
Pike, General Z. M., 380. 
Pinckney, C. C, 332, 344, 346. 
Pitcher, Molly, 261. 
Pitt, William, 79. 

Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), battle of, 499. 
Piatt, Thomas C, 633. 
Plattsburg, battle of, 392-3. 
Pleasant Hill, battle of, 578. 
Pleasanton, General Alfred, 543. 
Plymouth Colony, settlement of, 42. 
Pocahontas, 13, 36. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 467. 
Polk, Bishop, 490, 499, 534. 
Polk, James Knox, 443. 
Pontiac, 13, 82. 

" Poor Richard's Almanac," 76. 
Pope, General John, 503, 511, 524, 525. 
Population, center of, 614. 
Populists (see Party). 
Porter, Admiral D. D., 580. 
Porter, Captain David, 377, 383. 
Porter, Captain W. D., 496. 
Porter, General Fitz John, 519, 522. 
Port Gibson, battle of, 533. 
Port Hudson, fall of, 534. 
Portland, fire in, 611. 

Porto Rico, campaign in, 693-4 ; tariff, 697, 701 
Port Republic, action at, 520. 
J Port Royal (Annapolis) captured, 74. 



79o 



INDEX. 



Port Royal expedition, 51*. 
Postal Subsidy Bill, 658. 
Potts, Isaac, 248. . 
Powhatan, 13, 36, 38, 49. 
Prehistoric peoples, 9. 
Presbyterians, the, 347. 
Prescott, Colonel William, 151. 
Prescott, General, captured, 238. 
Prescott, William H., 467. 
President, the frigate, 369, 372. 
Presidential Succession Bill, 648. 
Preston, William B., 461. 
Prevost, General, 270, 272, 279. 
Price, General Stirling, 506, 511. 
Princeton, battle of, 197. 
Prison ships, 179. 
Privateers, Confederate, 493, 581. 
Proctor, General, 381, 382, 387. 
Proviso, the Wilmot, 453. 
Pulaski, capture of Fort, 513. 
Pulaski, Count, 202, 235, 265, 279. 
Putnam, General Israel, 149, 155, 168, 177, 182, 
191, 273. 

Quakrr Hill, battle of, 263. 
Quebec captured, 82. 
Queenstown Heights, battle of, 375. 
Quesne, Fort Du, 76, 80. 
Quincy, Josiah, 142, 372, 390. 

Railroads, 416, 612, 626. 

Raisin, massacre at the, 381. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 31-2. 

Randolph, Edmund, 332, 335. 

Randolph, John, 364, 413. 

Rawdon, Lord, 311, 312. 

Rebellion, the Whiskey, 338 ; Dorr's, 440. 

Reciprocity treaties, 658, 659, 662, 706, 754. 

Redbank, Fort, 243. 

Redemptioners, the, 56. 

Red Jacket, 14, 277. 

Red River Expedition, 577. 

Reed, Colonel Joseph, 191, 196. 

Reed, Thomas B., 657. 

Regulators, the, 141. 

Rensselaer, General Van, 373, 375. 

Republicans (see Party). 

Resaca de la Palma, battle of, 449. 

Reynolds, General John F., 548. 

Ribaut, Jean, 30. 

Rich Mountain, skirmish at, 489. 

Richmond, fire at, 370 ; capture of, 589-90. 

Riedesel, journal of Madame, 220-6. 

Roanoke Island, colony at, 31 ; expedition to, 

512- 
Rochambeau, Count de, 318. 
Rocky Mount, attack on, 293. 
Rolfe, John, 36. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 687, 697-8, 703-35, 746-749. 
Rosecrans, General William S., 504, 534. 
Rotation in office introduced, 419, 641. 
Rough Riders, the, 689. 
Rush, Benjamin, 255 
Russy, capture of Fort de, 577. 
Rutledge, Governor John, 171, 332. 

Sabine Cross-Roads (Mansfield), battle of, 57H. 
Sackett's Harbor, attack on, 380. 



Sackville, Lord, 651. 

St. Clair, General Arthur, 204, 337. 

St. Leger, Colonel, 206, 207. 

St. Louis, 410. 

St. Pierre, 704. 

Samoa, 696-7. 

San Francisco, 466. 

Sanitary Commission, the, 598. 

San Juan Hill, battle of, 690. 

Santa Anna, 445, 453. 

Santee, battle at ford of, 285. 

SanJago, battle of, 689-90 ; naval battle off ,'691-3; 
fall of, 693. 

Santo Domingo, annexation of, 614. 

Saratoga, battles of, 213-5. 

Savage's Station, battle of, 523. 

Savannah, 268, 278, 323, 566. 

Schenck, Robert C, 622-3. 

Schenectady, burning of, 70. 

Schley, Winfield Scott, 682, 688. 

Schuyler, Fort, 207, 209. 

Schuyler, General Philip, 205, 206, 212, 414 ; anec- 
dote of Mrs., 212. 

Scofield, General John M., 561, 566, 581. 

Scott, General Winfield, Queenstown, 375 ; Chip- 
pewa, 391 ; Presidential candidate, 434, 470 ; 
Mexico, 457 ; Civil War, 484, 490, 493. 

Sedgwick, General John, 521, 542-4, 549, 568, 570. 

Seminole Indians, 14, 403, 429. 

Semmes, Captain R., 493, 581. 

Senecas, the, 278. 

Seven-Days Battles, 522. 

Seven Pines, battle of, 520. 

Sevier, Governor John, 295, 341. 

Sewall, Judge Stephen, 52. 

Seward, William H., 426, 463, 485. 

Sewing-machine, the, 462. 

Shafter, General W. R., 703. 

Shaw, Colonel Robert G., 554. 

Sheridan, General Phil. H., 508, 571, 576, 584, 587, 
590, 618. 

Sherman Bill, the, 664. 

Sherman, General T. W., 494. 
Sherman, General W. T., at Pittsburg Landing, 
500 ; Chickasaw Bayou, 509 ; Chattanooga, 
536; Knoxville, 541; march to Atlanta, 560; 
March to the Sea, 564 ; in Carolina, 584 ; death 
of, 657. 
Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), 499. 
Sickles, General Daniel E., 543, 549. 
Sigel, General Franz, 511, 572. 
Signal Service, the, of the United States, 640-1. 
Silliman, Professor Benjamin, 467. 
Silver-Grays (see Party). 
Skippack Creek, Washington at, 233. 
Slemmer, Lieutenant A. J., 480. 
Slocum, General Henry W., 544. 
Slocum, Mrs., 169. 
Slocumb, Mrs., 289. 
Smith, Captain John, 34, 56. 
Smith, General A. J., 578. 
Smith, General C. F., 498. 
Smith, General Kirby, 504, 578, 594, 
Smith, General W. S., 577, 578. 
Smith, Robert, 355, 369. 
Smithsonian Institution, the, 431. 
Soft-shells (see Party). 
Soto, Ferdinand de, 27, 28. 



INDEX. 



791 



Southard, Sam. L., 400, 412. 

South Carolina, political troubles in, 625. 

South Mountain, battle of, 526. 

Spain, treaty with, 339, 709 ; and the Powers, 681. 

Spanish press, the, 678-9. 

Specie payment, resumption of, 628. 

Spy hanged, 240. 

Stalwarts, the (see Party). 

Stamp Act, 135, 139. 

Stanley, Henry M., 626-7, 657. 

Stanton, Edwin M., 486, 620. 

Stark, General John, 209. 

Steadman, attack on Fort, 587. 

Steam navigation, 365, 434. 

Steele, General Fred, 578. 

Steele, John, 53 ; Mrs. Elizabeth, 309. 

Steele, Salmon, anecdote of, 155. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 479. 

Steuben, Baron, 256, 257, 329. 

Stirling, General (Lord), 177, 260, 297. 

Stoddart, Benjamin, 345, 355. 

Stoneman, General George D., 558, 584. 

Stonington bombarded, 395. 

Stono Ferry, battle of, 272. 

Stony Point, capture of, 275. 

Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, 467. 

Streight, Colonel A. D., 557. 

Strong, William L., 683. 

Stuart, General J. E. B., 521, 543, 548, 553, 569, 

57i- 
Stuyvesant, Governor, 57. 
Sugar House, the Old, 298. 
Sullivan, General John, 177, 192, 228, 262, 277. 
Sumner, Charles, 468, 472. 
Sumner, General Edwin, 521, 526, 529. 
Sumter, attack on Fort, 486, 554, 555. 
Sumter, General Thomas, 287, 313. 
Sun, the New York, 428. 
Sunbury, capture of, 270. 

Taft, Alfonso, 621. 

Taft, Wm. H., 706, 718, 722, 737 to 758. 

Talbot, Silas, fires Renomme, 182. 

Tamrrany Society, the, 339. 

Taney, Roger B., 423, 428, 476. 

Tanner, Corporal, 654. 

Tariff, ,the, 416, 641 ; compromise, 424 ; on hog 
products in Europe, 659. 

Tarleton, Colonel, 284, 287, 296, 297, 308, 317. 

Taylor, Zachary, 430, 448, 460. 

Tecumseh, 13, 370, 381, 387. 

Telegraph, the magnetic, 442, 626 ; the subma- 
rine, 609. 

Telephone, the, 626. 

Tennessee, admission of, 341 ; restored to the 
Union, 606. 

Territory, Northwestern, 331. 

Terry, General A. H., 580, 586, 623. 

Texas, admission of, 443. 

Thames, battle of the, 387. 

Third term discussion, 629. 

Thomas, General George H. (" Old Pap Safety "), 
Logan's Cross-Roads, 496; Chickamauga, 

534. 567- 
Ticonderoga, Fort, 80, 150, 204. 
Tilden, Samuel J., 622. 
Tippecanoe, 370, 434. 
Titanic disaster, the, 769. 



Treaty of Paris, 323 ; with England, 338 ; with 
France, 360 ; the Ashburton, 439 ; Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, 459 ; Clayton-Bulwer, 464 ; Gads- 
den, 472 ; Washington, 615 ; Paris, 1898, 695. 

Trenton, battle of, 190. 

Tribune, the New York, 429. 

Trusts, federal regulation of, 705. 

Tryon, Governor, 141, 159, 203, 235, 274. 

Tweed, William M., 615. 

Tyler, John, 434, 438, 479. 

Umbrellas, first used, 122. 
Unitarians, the, 347. 

Valley Forge, 245-8. 

Van Buren, Martin, 414, 419, 426, 431, 460. 

Van Dorn, General Earl, 506, 511. 

Venezuela incident, the, 670-1 ; Germany and 

Great Britain blockade ports of, 707. 
Vera Cruz, capture of, 457; again occupied 

by the United States, 764-767. , 

Verazzani, 28. 
Vermont, admission of, 339, 
Vernon, Mount, 343. 
Vespucci, Amerigo, 26. 
Vicksburg, capture of, 534. 
Virginia, settlement of, 34. 
Vizcaya, the, 679. 

Wadsworth, General James S., 569. 

Wagner, attack on Fort, 554-5- 

Waite, Governor, of Colorado, 669. 

Wainright, Richard, 692. 

Waldron, Major, 70. 

Walker, William, 474. 

Wallace, General Lew, 497, 500, 504. 

War, Black Hawk, 425 ; Civil, 481 ; Colonial, 67; 
Creek, 388, 412 ; 1812-14, 372 ; French and In- 
dian, 68; King George's, 68 ; King Philip's, 
51 ; King William's, 71 ; Mexican, 448; "Pa- 
triot," 433 ; Pequod, 53 ; Pontiac's, 83 ; Queen 
Anne's, 68 ; Revolutionary, 131 ; Seminole, 
403, 429 ; Spanish-American, 681 ; with Fili- 
pinos, 696-7. 

Ward, General Artemas, 151. 

Warner, Colonel Seth, 151, 205, 209. 

Warren, death of General Joseph, 155. 

Warren, General Gouverneur K., 550, 553, 568, 
588. 

Washington, Captain William, 193, 307, 308, 311, 
3*3- 

Washington, George, in French and Indian War, 
75 ; at Mount Vernon, 129 ; elected com- 
mander-in-chief, 151; at Cambridge, 156; at 
Brooklyn, 180 ; at New York, 182 ; in New 
Jersey, 187 ; crosses the Delaware, 191 ; a 
dictator, 194 ; at Trenton and Princeton, 
196-7 ; at Middlebrook, 226 ; anecdote of, 
227 ; at Whitemarsh, 243 ; at Valley Forge, 
245 ; at Brandywine, 228-9 '•, at Monmouth, 
260 ; at Springfield, 299 ; resignation of, 328 ; 
at Newburg, 329 ; elected President, 334 ; 
private life, 334 ; farewell address, 342 ; 
levees, 343 ; death of, 345. 

Washington, capture of Fort, 186. 

Washington Centennial, 654. 

Washington, the capital at, 337, 346, 359, 415, 469. 



792 



INDEX. 



Washington, treaty of, 615. 

Waxhaw Creek, battle of, 285. 

Wayne, General Anthony, 229, 260, 275, 337. 

Webster, Daniel, 421, 439, 464, 469. 

Weed, Thurlow, 426. 

Weitzel, General Godfrey, 580. 

Wesley, John and Charles, 66. 

West Point, academy at, 358. 

Weyler, Captain-General, 677. 

Wheeler, General Joseph, 690. 

Wheeler, William A., 622. 

Whigs, the (see Party). 

"Whisky Ring," the, 622. 

White, Colonel, anecdote of, 280. 

Whitefield, George, 66, 74. 

White Plains, battle of, 184. 

Wljittier, John G., 467. 

Wilderness, battle of, 568. 

Willard, Mrs. Emma, 402. 

Wilkes, Captain, in Trent Affair, 494. 

Wilkinson, General James, 363, 380. 

Willett, Colonel, 207-8. 

William, Henry, massacre at Port, 79. 

Williams, Colonel, 295, 309, 313. 

Williams, Roger, 53. 

Williamsburg, battle of, 517. 

Williamsburg, powder seized at, 157. 

Wilmington, capture of, 580. 

Wilson, Henry, 616. 

Wilson, General James H., 567, 584. 

Wilson's Creek, battle of, 489. 



Wilson Tariff Bill, 668-9, 69 6 ' 

Wilson, Woodrow, nominated and elected 
President, 748-750; sketch of, 751-753; tar- 
iff and income tax bills passed under, 
754 — ; the Currency act, 756; the Canal 
Tolls repeal, 757; and Huerta's govern- 
ment in Mexico, 761-767. 

Winthrop, Governor, 64, 54, 94. 

Winthrop, M«.jor Theodore, 489. 

Wirt, William, 401, 412, 426. 

Wisconsin, admission of, 460. 

Wise. Governor Henry A., 474. 

Witchcraft, Salem, 51. 

Wolcott, Oliver, 344. 

Wolfe, General James, 80, 82. 

Wool, General John E., 375, 453. 

Wooster, General David, 164, 236. 

World's Columbian Exposition opened, May, 
1893, 665; appropriation for, 617. 

Wright, Sir James, 270. 

Wright's Bluff, capture of, 312. 

Wright, Silas, 442. 

Wright, General H. G., 576. 

Wyoming, massacre of, 263. 

Yellow fever, 627. 

York, capture of, 379. 

York, Duke of, 58-9. 

Yorktown, siege of, 319, 516; centennial, 636. 

Young, Brigham, 441. 

Young's House, attack on, 298, 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



THE following preamble and specifications, known as the Declaration of Independence 
accompanied the resolution of Richard Henry Lee, which was adopted by Congress 
on the 2d day of July, 1776. This declaration was agreed to on the 4th, and the trans- 
action is thus recorded in the Journal for that day . 

"Agreeably to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a committee of the 
whole, to take into their further consideration the Declaration ; and, after some time, the 
president resumed the chair, and Mr. Harrison reported that the committee have agreed 
to a Declaration, ichich they desired him to report. The Declaration being read, icas 
agreed to as follows : 

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve 
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among 
the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and 
of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that 
they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created equal ; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; 
that, whenever any form of government becomes destruct: ?e of these ends, it is the 
right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its 
foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall 
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate 
that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, 
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which 
they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing in- 
variably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it 
is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards 
for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, rud such 
is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. 
The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and 
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny ovei 
these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

1. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the pub- 
lic good. 

2. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing impor- 
tance, unless suspended in tlieir operations till his assent should be obtained ; and, when 
so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

3. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, 
unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature — a 
right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. 



794 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

4. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and 
distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing 
them into compliance with his measures. 

5. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firm 
ness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

6. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be 
elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the 
people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all 
the dangers of invasions from without, and convulsions within. 

7. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose 
obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to 
encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations 
of lands. 

8. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws 
for establishing judiciary powers. 

9. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, 
and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

10. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to 
harass our people and eat out their substance. 

11. He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent 
of our Legislatures. 

12. He has affected to render the military independent of. and superior to, the civil 
power. 

13. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our con- 
stitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended 
legislation ; 

14. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; 

15. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which 
they should commit on the inhabitants of these States ; 

16. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world ; 

17. For imposing taxes on us without our consent ; 

18. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury ; 

19. For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences ; 

20. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, estab- 
lishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render 
it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into 
these colonies ; 

21. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, 
fundamentally, the forms of our governments ; 

22. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with 
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

23. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and 
waging war against us. 

24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed 
the lives of our people. 

25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 
the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty 
and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the 
head of a civilized nation. 

26. He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear 
arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, jjr 
|/0 fall themselves by their hands. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



70S 



27. He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on 
the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of war- 
fare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble 
terms ; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince 
whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be 
the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have 
warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwar- 
rantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our 
emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and mag- 
nanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow 
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. 
They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, there- 
fore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we 
hold the rest of mankind — enemies in war ; in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Con- 
fess assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our 
intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, 
solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, 
and ought to be, totally dissolved, and that, as free and independent States, they have 
full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all 
other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support 
of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we 
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 

The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the 
following members : 

JOHN HANCOCK. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
josiah bartlett, 
William Whipple, 
Matthew Thornton. 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerry. 

RHODE ISLAND. 
Stephen Hopkins, 
William Ellery. 

CONNECTICUT. 
Roger Sherman, 
Samuel Huntington, 
Wl.liam Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

NEW YORK. 
Willi \m Floyd, 
Philip Livingston, 
Francis Lewis, 
Lewis Morr.s. 



NEW JERSEY. 
Richard Stockton, 
John Witherspoon, 
Francis Hopki^son, 
John Hart, 
Abraham Clark. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 
Robert Morris, 
Benjamin Rush, 
Benjamin Franklin, 
John Morton, 
George Clymer, 
James Smith, 
George Taylor, 
James Wilson, 
George Ross. 

DELAWARE. 
C/esar Rodney, 
George Read, 
Thomas M'Kean. 

MARYLAND. 

Samuel Chase, 
William Paca, 
Thomas Stone 



Charles Carroll, of Car- 
rollton. 

VIRGINIA. 
George Wythe, 
Richard Henry Lee, 
Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, 
Thomas Nelson, Jun., 
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 
Carter Brayton. 

NORTH CAROLINA. 
William Hooper 
Joseph Hewes, 
John Penn. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 
Edward Rutledge, 
Thomas Heyward, Jon., 
Thomas Lynch, Jun., 
Arthur Middleton. 

GEORGIA. 
Button Gwinnett, 
Lyman Hall, 
George Walton. 



Note.— D wight's "Lives of the Signers" gives a brief sketch of each. A. S 
B;unes& Co., publishers. 



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